The 5Ws and 1H of Ransomware

For the past three months, we have seen ransomware hop its way across globe. Majority of the ransomware incidents are found in the United States, then Italy, and Canada. The prevalence of large-scale ransomware incidents led the United States and Canadian governments to issue a joint statement about ransomware. Due to the global ransomware incidents, the…

Malicious macro using a sneaky new trick

We recently came across a file (ORDER-549-6303896-2172940.docm, SHA1: 952d788f0759835553708dbe323fd08b5a33ec66) containing a VBA project that scripts a malicious macro (SHA1: 73c4c3869304a10ec598a50791b7de1e7da58f36). We added it under the detection TrojanDownloader:O97M/Donoff – a large family of Office-targeting macro-based malware that has been active for several years (see our blog category on macro-based malware for more blogs). However, there wasn’t…

Large Kovter digitally-signed malvertising campaign and MSRT cleanup release

Kovter is a malware family that is well known for being tricky to detect and remove because of its file-less design after infection. Users from United States are nearly exclusively being targeted, and infected PCs are used to perform click-fraud and install additional malware on your machine. Starting April 21, 2016, we observed a large…

Gamarue, Nemucod, and JavaScript

JavaScript is now being used largely to download malware because it’s easy to obfuscate the code and it has a small size. Most recently, one of the most predominant JavaScript malware that has been spreading other malware is Nemucod. This JavaScript trojan downloads additional malware (such as Win32/Tescrypt and Win32/Crowti – two pervasive ransomware trojans…

Digging deep for PLATINUM

This blog introduces our latest report from the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team. You can read the full report at: PLATINUM: Targeted attacks in South and Southeast Asia There is no shortage of headlines about cybercriminals launching large-scale attacks against organizations. For us, the activity groups that pose the most danger are the ones…

A brief discourse on ‘Changing browsing experience’

In response to questions we’ve received from the software distribution and monetization industry, and following our blog announcing our browser modifier policy update, we’d like to provide some details on what we refer to in our policy as “changing browsing experience”. For us, “changing browsing experience” means behaviors that modify the content of webpages. We…

MSRT April release features Bedep detection

As part of our ongoing effort to provide better malware protection, the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) release this April will include detections for: Win32/Bedep – Trojan family Win32/Upatre – Trojan family Ransom:MSIL/Samas – Ransomware family In this blog, we’ll focus on the Bedep family of trojans.   The bothersome Bedep Win32/Bedep was first…

Keeping Browsing Experience in Users’ Hands, an Update…

Since we published the Keeping Browsing Experience in Users’ Hands blog in December 2015, we’ve received feedback from the ecosystem and engaged in discussions with the industry. Based on those discussions and feedback, we are making a couple of updates. We are broadening the scope of the evaluation criteria we blogged about to state: Programs…

New feature in Office 2016 can block macros and help prevent infection

Macro-based malware is on the rise and we understand it is a frustrating experience for everyone. To help counter this threat, we are releasing a new feature in Office 2016 that blocks macros from loading in certain high-risk scenarios.   Macro-based malware infection is still increasing Macro-based malware continues its rise. We featured macro-based malware…