Josh Wieder

Scams focused on stealing tax refunds remain highly profitable, despite the fact that they are well known and understood by security professionals and the general public , and have been for years. A variety of distribution methods are used, with the common threads being the use of IRS logos and bureaucratic-sounding language to convince users to click a link, download and execute a file and/or send personally identifying information like a Social Security number. A recent example of one such a scam that I came across is a damning illustration of the failure of online service providers to protect users from obvious and simple malware distribution methods. In the example I wish to discuss today, the distribution method was a spammed email that on a small ISP's installation of SpamAssassin (note: I am not an admin or employee of this system; I'm a customer) received an X-Spam-Status score of 5.3 after being flagged with the following variables: X-Spam-Status: No, score=5.3 re...

I've spotted a trojan/shell exploit that targets ASP.NET named ASPY.a making the rounds again recently. By no means a 0-day or brand new bit of malware, ASPY.a has been around for about 2 years . It takes advantage of vulnerable ASP scripts, uploads itself to a web server and in unpatched systems that lack sensible permissions policies and the latest updates, it can grant remote attackers administrator access. Microsoft Security Essentials will catch it, however I've seen at least one version of Symantec that does not completely remove compromised files - with Symantec server-level compromise was prevented, but the website itself remained controllable. So why am I writing a post about a 2 year old piece of malware? The story here is that the circulation appears to be driven by a developer based in Russia that sells "server control panel" (панель управления сервером, управление) software for novices tasked with IIS-based website management. The name of the company is...