Gladiator Research and Security

GSA Reference Number: AD091203-01

Simply Put: A fraudulent email is currently circulating that appears to be from the Center for Disease Control (CDC).  The email scam informs recipients that they need to register with the CDC due to the launch of a ficticious “State Vaccination H1N1 Program.”  There is a link in the email that will forward users to a fake website that will actually install the ZeuS Trojan.

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GSA Reference Number: AD091124-01

Simply Put: Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 6 and 7 are vulnerable to a remote code execution vulnerability.  This vulnerability was released to the public earlier this week.  Currently, this exploit is not deemed reliable, meaning that it is difficult to exploit consistently.  However, there will most likely be a reliable version released in the near future.  This exploit also could be triggered by an HTML email message if using Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Microsoft Mail, as these products use IE to display these messages.

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Over the past year, security researchers found many new Web attacks indicating that the “bad guys” have come up with some rather advanced methods to accomplish their dirty deeds.  In the past few months alone, two particular banking attacks have been detected that demonstrate the sophisticated methods being used to steal money from online banking users.  In the first attack method, dubbed “Chat-in-the-Middle,” the fraudster creates a fake support chat session with his victim by claiming to be from the bank’s fraud department.  The fraudster then uses social engineering techniques to attempt to gather further information from the unsuspecting victim.  The second attack, a Trojan known as URLZone, involves editing a user’s banking website to hide money transfer transactions started by the attackers.  This technique gives attackers ample time to transfer the funds through “money mules” and, eventually, into their own accounts, well before the attack is ever spotted by the victim.

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