VB Migration

Tag: adware

  • VB2018 video: Adware is just malware with a legal department – how we reverse engineered OSX/Pirrit, received legal threats, and survived

    OSX/Pirrit was first analysed in 2016 by Cybereason ‘s Amit Serper in a guest blog post for the Objective See blog. It is an interesting and technically thorough analysis of a piece of adware that, as is not uncommon, uses techniques borrowed from malware. Pirrit appears as an unsigned executable inside an app bundle, source:…

  • VB2018 video: Adware is just malware with a legal department – how we reverse engineered OSX/Pirrit, received legal threats, and survived

    OSX/Pirrit was first analysed in 2016 by Cybereason ‘s Amit Serper in a guest blog post for the Objective See blog. It is an interesting and technically thorough analysis of a piece of adware that, as is not uncommon, uses techniques borrowed from malware. Pirrit appears as an unsigned executable inside an app bundle, source:…

  • Lenovo laptops pre-installed with software that adds its own root CA certificate

    Shared root certificate makes for easy man-in-the-middle attacks. What is Superfish ? Superfish is a product that offers ‘Visual Search’. Say, for example, you are looking at cat photos on the Internet. Superfish inserts photos of similar cats into your browser, with links to places where you can buy them. Sounds like something that enhances…

  • VB conference hashtag used to spread malware

    Tweet promising conference news links to trojan. A tweet using the #vb2011 hashtag, which was used in numerous tweets referring to last week’s VB2011 conference , contained a link spreading malware, according to researchers at BitDefender . The link used a URL-shortening service to download a file named VB2011.exe , which, once executed, injected a…

  • 41 months plus hefty fine for botherder

    Cross-border operation brings adware crook to book. A Florida man has been sentenced to 41 months in prison and fined $65,000 (approx. £32,000) after implanting bot software on systems belonging to a global corporation and using them to install adware. When brought before US courts in March, the man, Robert Matthew Bentley of Panama City,…

  • Spyware maker Direct Revenue closes doors

    Notorious company forced out of business by legal actions. After numerous lawsuits and fines, adware and spyware maker Direct Revenue is no more. The firm behind a swathe of intrusive and malicious software products has ceased trading thanks to cases brought by New York State and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) challenging its devious…

  • Microsoft files further adware patent

    User behaviour monitors could be used to target ads. Following a patent application disclosed some months ago , details have been released of another adware scheme patented by Microsoft . This time, the idea is to monitor the behaviour of users to deduce the kinds of advertising that would be most effective at any given…

  • Kaspersky-Zango case heralded as groundbreaking

    Judge sets precedent upholding users’ rights to block badware. A lawsuit brought by adware-pusher Zango against Kaspersky Lab was dismissed last week, with the judge in the case finding that software could offer users the option to block anything that could be considered inappropriate or undesirable. The decision could set an important precedent for the…

  • Microsoft files adware system patent

    Ads could be targeted at users based on local system data. Microsoft has filed a patent application for a new method of targeting advertising, using information on the contents of a local computer rather than interactions with the web. While most current advertising relies on watching an individual’s web browsing habits, selecting the type of…

  • Zango sues PC Tools for $35 million

    ‘Reformed’ adware shippers upset by detection and removal. Adware and sometime spyware maker Zango has brought a suit against anti-spyware firm PC Tools complaining that the Spyware Doctor product, a pared-down version of which is included in the freely available Google Pack set of utilities provided by Google , overestimates the dangers of the Zango…