VB2014 previews: an overview

Fourteen blog posts look ahead at the 24th Virus Bulletin conference.

In just a few more hours, delegates will be able to collect their

VB2014

badges before the conference really gets going tomorrow. If you are as impatient as we are but, unlike us, don’t have to spend the next few hours stuffing delegate bags and alphabetising badges, you might want to read some of the blog posts we have published over the last few weeks, previewing some of the conference presentations.

Of course, there are many more papers than those previewed, and we urge you to take a look at the

full programme

, which shows the full spectrum of papers.

• 
  
  P0wned by a barcode
  
  
  : Fabio Assolini discusses malware targeting ‘boletos’.

• 
  
  Optimized mal-ops. Hack the ad network like a boss
  
  
  : Researchers Vadim Kotov and Rahul Kashyap discuss how advertisements are the new exploit kits.

• 
  
  Labelling spam through the analysis of protocol patterns
  
  
  : Andrei Husanu and Alexandru Trifan look at what TCP packet sizes can teach us.

• 
  
  Duping the machine – malware strategies, post sandbox detection
  
  
  : James Wyke looks at four different decoy methods.

• 
  
  Methods of malware persistence on Mac OS X
  
  
  : Patrick Wardle shows that
  
  OS X
  
  users really do have something to worry about.

• 
  
  Design to discover: security analytics with 3D visualization engine
  
  
  : Thibault Reuille and Dhia Mahjoub use particle physics to shows clusters of malicious domains.

• 
  
  Swipe away, we’re watching you
  
  
  : Hong Kei Chan and Liang Huang describe the various aspects and the evolution of point-of-sale malware.

• 
  
  Last-minute papers added to the programme
  
  
  : An overview of the seven presentations added to the schedule just three weeks ago.

• 
  
  The three levels of exploit testing
  
  
  : Richard Ford and Marco Carvalho present an idea for how to test products that claim to detect the unknown.

• 
  
  Apple without a shell – iOS under targeted attack
  
  
  :
  
  FireEye
  
  researchers show a large attack vector for Apple’s mobile operating system.

• 
  
  Keynote and closing panel
  
  
  : Vulnerability disclosure, one of the hottest issues in security.

• 
  
  Two papers on Linux server malware
  
  
  : Researchers from
  
  ESET
  
  ,
  
  Yandex
  
  and
  
  Symantec
  
  look at an emerging malware trend.

• 
  
  Ubiquitous Flash, ubiquitous exploits and ubiquitous mitigation
  
  
  : Chun Feng and Elia Florio look at exploits targeting domain memory opcode in
  
  Adobe Flash
  
  .

• 
  
  Tech Support Scams 2.0: an inside look into the evolution of the classic Microsoft tech support scam
  
  
  : Jérôme Segura looks at recent developments in malicious cold calls.

Should you have any questions, we answered a number of them in a

blog post

last week. Or you can just come to the registration desk at 16:00 this afternoon.

See you soon!

Posted on 23 September 2014 by

Martijn Grooten