During June and July, F5 researchers first noticed Trickbot campaigns aimed at a smaller set of geographically oriented targets and did not use redirection attacks—a divergence from previous Trickbot characteristics. In this research, we compared two different target configurations, one older, more “traditional” configuration that uses redirection, and a new Trickbot configuration that does not…

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While analyzing this script which downloads and executes the cryptominer, F5 researchers found that the code is sophisticated, well obfuscated, and long—about 200 lines versus the typical 20 or so lines. The authors clearly put a lot of time and attention into every step, from developing the malware dropper to creating the executable JAR file…

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In many organizations, building and securing apps has typically been a siloed affair. The product owner, the network engineer, the developer and the security engineer all come from different teams. And all too often, these teams become fiefdoms that believe their focus is the company’s primary objective. Today with Agile and DevOps moving faster and…

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Further analysis on this sample was not conducted. F5 Labs has reported extensively on the Mirai botnet, IoT landscape, and some of its variants. For a detailed breakdown on current Mirai botnets seen in the threat landscape, the Hunt for IoT Research Series publishes current threat data. Conclusion All of the vulnerabilities targeted this month…

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I know for a fact that Microsoft really does take security seriously, and most of the company is moving in the right direction. That said, the security problems revealed in the CSRB report are shocking and completely unacceptable for a technology company with the size, control, and power of Microsoft. Remember, too, that after intense…

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Intro The F5 Application Protection Report podcast returns for 2019! Last year, F5 Labs researchers examined the entire landscape of threats facing applications, and offered guidance on how to protect them. This year, they followed up with another research series that examined how both apps and threats are changing, and what security practitioners can do…

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Security in the cloud has always followed a shared responsibility model. What the provider manages, the provider secures. What the customer deploys, the customer secures. Generally speaking, if you have no control over it in the cloud, then the onus of securing it is on the provider. Serverless, which is kind of like a SaaS-hosted…

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Use of Cyber Deception to Influence Voters Rather than directly manipulate votes, cyber attackers are now finding success in misleading the voters themselves. Once again, social engineering triumphs over technology. The key to this tactic is simple, and cyberwarfare researcher The Grugq said it best, “People will believe what their computers tell them is reality.”…

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Introduction Welcome to F5 Labs’ third annual report on phishing and fraud. Once again, we’re bringing you data from our partner Webroot® as well as the F5 Security Operations Center. Phishing continues to be a major source of profit for cyber-criminals, and a big hassle for cyber-defenders. In the F5 Labs 2019 Application Protection Report,…

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A vast majority of organisations have no visibility into encrypted traffic, nor do they have protection against automated attackers. In Mary Meeker’s most recent Internet Trends report, the numbers show that in the first quarter of 2019, 87 per cent of global web traffic was encrypted, up from 53 per cent just three years ago.…

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