Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i Hackercool Magazine

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Michael Parent Professor, Management Information Systems, Simon Fraser University The recent cyberattacks in August on Bombardier Recreational Products and the Ontario Cannabis Store highlight the continuing scourge of cyber criminals and ransomware. Ransomware is a piece of malware — malicious software — code that gets into an information system and blocks access to the computer or its files until the victim pays to obtain a key, or password. Ransomware was a term that did not enter the popular lexicon until about 10 years ago (and it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018). It has now evolved, and in 2021, there were 3,729 ransomware complaints registered, with losses of US$49.2 million in designated critical infrastructures alone. The average ransomware payment climbed 82 per cent to hit a record…

Ever since Microsoft banned the usage ofMacros by default, hackers and APTs alike have shifted to various other methods to deliver malware. Macros were a perfect method to deliver malware for hackers. Seeing the seriousness ofthis feature, Microsoft has finally decided to disable macros by default after some dilly dallying. This move comes a few months after disabling XLM macros by default. To be precise, hackers have been moving towards other delivery methods even before the ban ofmacros by default. Some ofthese methods were being used since long time. It is only the recent Microsoft’s ban on macros that increased their usage. Pròofpoint reported that the use ofVBA & XL4 macros by malicious action reduced approximately by 66% starting from October 2021 to June 2022. It also reported that in…

Qakbot, Quakbot, Qbot or Pinkslipbot is a type of malware called as financial malware or a banking Trojan. Its main purpose was to steal banking credentials and other related financial information. However, in recent times it has various variants that perform other activities like dropping of additional malware, logging keystrokes or creating a backdoor on compromised machines. It was first discovered in 2007 but even after 15 years is still active in the wild. The reason for this longterm success can be its usage of new techniques to avoid being detected and preventing its analysis. In this month’s Issue, we are providing you an article about evolution of Qakbot in the recent months to make our readers understand AV evasion better. This article is a result of thorough analysis done…