Last week, the security industry honed in on exploits, specifically a newly found zero-day malware against Adobe Flash Player. Senior Security Researcher Jérôme Segura discussed this clearly and concisely in this blog post. The vulnerability the exploit was designed to take advantage of was designated CVE-2015-0311, and it was recently patched. If you want to learn more about exploits and how big a threat they are to user systems, a great recommended reading would be “Exploit Kits: A Fast Growing Threat“, also penned by Segura.
Fellow senior in the security research field, Nathan Collier, spotted and documented a rogue wallpaper app on Google Play that, once installed on mobile devices, can steal account details from users.
Security Researcher Christopher Boyd reminded us once more to be vigilant when in social networks as threats remain: one from Tumblr, which posed as a Tumblr app users can download. The file was found to transform affected accounts to bots; and lastly from Facebook, which is a re-appearance of Facebook Color, this time in red.
Notable news stories and security related happenings:
- Microsoft Outlook Hacked Following Gmail Block in China. “On Monday, online censorship watchdog Greatfire.org said the organization received reports that Outlook was subject to a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack in China.” (Source: ZDNet)
- Which Is The Most Secure Web Browser?. “It turns out that ranking web browser security isn’t all that cut and dried. There are a lot of factors that go into safe browsing online, and when you take them all into account, perhaps no one browser can truly be called the safest.” (Source: Information Security Buzz)
- ‘123456’ & ‘Password’ Are The 2 Most Common Passwords, Again. “New entrants to the top 25 show that bad password creators are fans of sports, superheroes, dragons, and NSFW numeral combos.” (Source: Dark Reading)
- Gamers Hit with Trojanized Versions of Official League of Legends Releases. “Computer security experts often advise to users to download games, apps, documents, software and software updates directly from the original source (the manufacturer) or from reputable online stores. It’s good advice that minimizes considerably the danger of downloading malware, but it’s also not a guarantee that it won’t happen…” (Source: Help Net Security)
- PageLines and Platform Themes for WordPress Affected by Serious Security Flaws. “Security researchers also discovered that in the case of Platform there is another security bug, which permits an attacker to execute arbitrary code remotely, which could also lead to gaining full privilege on the website.” (Source: Softpedia)
- Adobe Fixes Just One of Two Actively Exploited Zero-day Vulnerabilities in Flash Player. “On Wednesday, a French malware researcher who uses the online alias Kafeine reported on his blog that cybercriminals using the Angler Exploit Kit are targeting an unpatched vulnerability in Flash Player. That vulnerability, it seems, is not CVE-2015-0310 and remains unpatched.” (Source: CSO Online)
- Click-fraud Malware Brings Thousands of Dollars to YouTube Scammers. “The malware that makes it possible is dubbed Tubrosa. It consists of two components: one that is delivered via spear-phishing spam emails and is installed by careless users, and the other that is downloaded and run by the first component.” (Source: Help Net Security)
Safe surfing, everyone!
The Malwarebytes Labs Team
