Media Coverage

Dallas-based cybersecurity software developer Trend Micro is taking aim at the ransomware market, saying yesterday that it has launched a new, free hotline to help victims of ransomware, and also rolled out a number of free tools to help remove ransomware from computers.

“But if there’s one lesson from the survey that everyone should take and act on right away, it’s that the ransomware threat should be met with a full reevaluation of your organizations countermeasures to see if they really are matching the latest threats out there,” Trend Micro explained in a blog post.

First, Trend Micro reported last week that the so-called “Godless” mobile malware can target any Android running Android 5.1 (Lollipop) or earlier.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are constantly occurring and are complex transactions, often involving entities from around the globe: from bankers, lawyers and investors facilitating the deal, to the actual business owners and stakeholders who benefit.

A similar revision of the balance between victim and kidnapper took place following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, points out Christopher Budd, global threat communications manager at Trend Micro. The terrorists who hijacked multiple planes broke with the traditional hostage-for-ransom model, to say the least. Their actions inspired a no-tolerance attitude toward hijackings that took negotiation or ransom out of the picture.

The information age and impact of globalization have thrust new demands upon the United States’ national security and public safety leadership. The need for technological superiority combined with strategic planning in a rapidly changing global environment is paramount to protecting US citizens. However, it is apparent that technological advantage is no guarantee for future success on this “new battlefield.”

Security firm Trend Micro said the malware, dubbed Godless (ANDROIDOS_GODLESS.HRX), targets a set of rooting exploits in its pockets and uses multiple exploits that can target virtually any Android device running Android 5.1 (Lollipop) or earlier.

“Even without counting the ransom itself, organizations affected by ransomware are going to have to deal with the costs of containment, downtime, and recovery,” explains Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president of cloud research at Trend Micro Inc., a global IT security provider with U.S. headquarters in Irving, Texas. “Prevention is best in order to avoid getting to that point where the tough discussion around paying needs to occur.”

As ransomware grows in popularity, TrendMicro researchers said aside from the social engineeringtactics and commercial grade encryption deployed on victims, cyber crooks also use less sophisticated malware routines including deleting shadow copies, using startup modification, using propagation tactics anti-detection mechanisms and other methods that wreak greater havoc when combined, according to a June 16 blog post.

Ransomware is type of malware that criminals use to lock users out of their own files. Once the user is locked out, a ransom note is displayed providing instructions on how to pay the criminal in order to – potentially – regain access to your data.

"There are no major differences between a FLocker variant that can infect a mobile device and one that affects smart TVs," Trend Micro researcher Echo Duan wrote in a blog post.

"If the Twitter password is reused elsewhere, Twitter two-factor authentication isn't going to help you on those other accounts," Trend Micro Global Threat Communications Manager Christopher Budd told TechNewsWorld.

"If the Twitter password is reused elsewhere, Twitter two-factor authentication isn't going to help you on those other accounts," Trend Micro Global Threat Communications Manager Christopher Budd told TechNewsWorld.

Somewhat interestingly, the individual conducting the chat conversation did not appear to know the ransom amount that the victim was being asked to pay and appeared reliant on the honesty of the victim to provide that information. “That’s because they haven’t built a channel to upload data from the victim to the ‘call center,’” says Christopher Budd, global threat communications manager at Trend Micro.

“The benefit is the user doesn't get infected, so the likelihood that they won't report the issue to the website owner is higher than if malware was used to infect them,” Trend Micro Senior Global Marketing Manager Jon Clay told SCMagazine.com. “This allows their scam to run longer than normal.”

FastPOS doesn't care about this aspect, and Trend Micro says the malware sends any stolen data to the C&C server as soon as it can get its hands on it.

While analyzing the threat, researchers with security firm Trend Micro observed that it was designed to target Windows XP 64-bit computers and that it can also run on more recent versions of Windows such as Windows 7 and 8.

“Most targeted attacks take minutes or seconds for the initial compromise,” explains Ed Cabrera, VP of Cyber Security Strategy at Trend Micro. “But it takes months or years to detect them.”

Software security vendor Trend Micro is promoting a layered approach to defending against the increasing threat of ransomware and malware.

After TeslaCrypt's authors publicly released the ransomware's master decryption key last week, Trend Micro researchers spotted cyber crooks jumping to CryptXXX.

Trend Micro recommends a layered protection approach involving a combination of web/email gateway, endpoint, server and network security. The firm said it stopped a massive 99 million ransomware threats for its customers between October 2015 and April 2016 – although admitted the actual figure for real infections globally is likely to be many times this number.

"Mac OS X and iOS are platforms that Trend Micro's security researchers look at," Christopher Budd, global threat communications manager at Trend Micro, told eWEEK. "As far as our Zero Day Initiative soliciting vulnerabilities from researchers for Mac OS X and iOS for possible vulnerabilities, Mac OS is one of the platforms of focus for Pwn2Own 2016."

Although cybercriminals have been turning out specialized hacking and attack tools at a rapid pace, terrorists are often using legitimate, consumer-focused technologies, according to a new Trend Micro report.

Trend Micro also supports the new policy, saying: "These changes were made in response to Trend Micro and other VirusTotal contributors seeing more and more companies that do not materially contribute to VirusTotal benefit from the data and analysis of those of us who do contribute on an ongoing basis."

Ed Cabrera, VP of Cyber Security Strategy at Trend Micro, advises a “3, 2, 1” rule for backups: three copies, in two different formats, with one held offsite. He describes it as a more resilient way to store backup files, while having offsite copies protects both the backups and infrastructure.

“It was never meant to enable new companies to use it as a shortcut by silently relying on, and benefitting from, the service without a corresponding investment,” said Trend Micro Chief Technology Officer Raimund Genes, one of many old-line tech executives who pushed for the shift.

A new report from Trend Micro has lifted the lid on the homegrown and commercial tools used by terrorists to communicate and spread propaganda – with many of them also used by cyber-criminals.

The free, mobile chatting service Telegram -- which is anonymous and encrypted -- is used by 34% of jihadists whose communications were the subject of a study by cybersecurity firm Trend Micro.

Of course Cyber Command has the resources to go far beyond what cybercriminal groups are capable of, which means the possibility of more complex, multi-layered attacks, says Ed Cabrera, vice president of cybersecurity strategy for Trend Micro.

The security software company Trend Micro issued a warning this monthdescribing two “critical vulnerabilities” in QuickTime for Windows and advised users to uninstall Apple’s abandoned program immediately. The Homeland Security Department posted a warning based on Trend Micro’s findings and also recommends that PC owners remove QuickTime from their systems.

Trend Micro Vice President of Cloud Research Mark Nunnikhoven told SCMagazine.com via emailed comments that the study “is interesting because of the gap it shows between the perception and reality for most organization's database security.”

“He made it very easy,” Jon Clay, of the security firm Trend Micro, told International Business Times. “It had its own administrative console that would track everything for you; you could pick and choose what components you wanted to install and utilize.”

Last week, researchers discovered two new security holes that could allow bad guys to create malicious files to launch within Apple’s media player. Trend Micro, the security research firm that found the vulnerability, said that it hasn’t yet found any evidence of exploits. But now that the findings are public, without promise of a fix from Apple, the risks are rising.

Security company TrendMicro blogged about the QuickTime vulnerability in a post titled "Urgent call to action." TrendMicro said it is unaware of any attacks that were made as a result of the QuickTime security bug, but it recommended deleting the program anyway.

The U.S. government has recommended that Windows PC users uninstall Apple Inc's QuickTime video player after security software maker Trend Micro Inc said on Thursday it had discovered two new bugs in the software.

"We will see much more successful attacks in other industries," said Ed Cabrera, vice president of cybersecurity strategy at Trend Micro.

Japanese security software maker Trend Micro Inc. said that it had warned Adobe that it had seen attackers exploiting the flaw to infect computers with a type of ransomware known as 'Cerber' as early as March 31.

“The problem is that hospitals aren't very mature when it comes to cybersecurity and dealing with robust, sophisticated online attacks,” Eduardo Cabrera, vice president for cybersecurity strategy at the security company Trend Micro Inc. in Irving, Texas. “A hospital needs health data in order to treat its patients. Hackers know there [are] major consequences if they don't act quickly.”

Kyle Wilhoit, who investigates these types of hacks for Trend Micro, said criminal hackers sometimes gain access to sensitive machinery by mistake.

If you’re curious about the teams and their attacks, security firm Trend Micro has recaps available for both days:

Security researchers from antivirus firm Trend Micro recently detected an attack against companies from 18 countries where key employees were targeted with emails that contained a commercial keylogger program called Olympic Vision.

On Sunday and Monday, the Times, the BBC, AOL and a host of other major news and entertainment websites inadvertently ran malicious ads that attempted to hijack the computers of visitors and demand a ransom, according to security researchers Malwarebytes and Trend Micro.

The malicious advertisements are connected to servers hosting the Angler exploit kit, a software package that probes a computer for software vulnerabilities in order to deliver malware, Trend Micro said.

On Monday, Trend Micro researchers said in a blog post that Pawn Storm, well-known for spying upon political targets across the world, is now targeting several government offices -- including the Prime Minister's office and the Turkish parliament -- as well as one of the largest media publications in the country.

On Tuesday, Trend Micro researchers released a whitepaper documenting the results of an investigation into the Web's underbelly, asking if the underground is connected globally, or whether there are countries which have a certain illegal "specialization" in goods or services.

"Over the years, Windows has become a harder target to attack, and less and less of what's connected to the Internet runs Windows," said Christopher Budd, global threat communications manager at Trend Micro.

Trend Micro has been instrumental in bringing down several hostile cyber operations, including, with U.K. partner The National Crime Agency, Refud.me and Cryptex Reborn. Working with Interpol, Kaspersky Lab, Microsoft and the Cyber Defense Institute, the SIMDA botnet was also eliminated.

Researchers at Trend Micro, one of the world's biggest security software firms, said this week that the software used to infect the Ukrainian utilities has also been found in the networks of a large Ukrainian mining company and a rail company.

Four third-party app stores for Android have apps with a malicious component that seeks root access to devices, according to Trend Micro.

It’s the model that Christopher Budd suggests that companies use when thinking about the threats they face. Budd, a global threat communications manager with Trend Micro, has called this a natural evolution. As there’s more money to be made, criminals will get increasingly sophisticated in how to make it.