Some of the earliest computer viruses deleted data and sometimes even rendered computers unusable. But as malware increasingly became a tool used for criminal or (geo)political purposes, its focus shifted to stealing data and using the resources of the compromised machines.
However, there has recently been a trend of APT campaigns including a ‘wiper’ functionality to destroy data, either as a means to remove evidence or as its core purpose.
At VB2018,
Saher Naumaan
, a researcher from
BAE Systems Applied Intelligence
in the UK, will present a
paper
that looks at such wipers as they have been deployed in malware such as Flame, Shamoon and DarkSeoul. Saher’s paper also covers WannaCry and NotPetya, both of which merely encrypted data, but since this was done in an unrecoverable manner, it effectively wiped the data too.
Major targeted attacks employing wipers and classifications.
Saher’s paper will be presented on the opening day of
VB2018
, which takes place in Montreal 3-5 October 2018.
Don’t forget to
book your ticket now
!
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