Scammers often try to convince you that you’ve already been hacked and you must contact them or send them money to prevent something worse from happening. I write about these a bunch: Another common “Bad thing already happened” scam is to send the user an email telling them that their devices were hacked some timeContinue reading “Attack Techniques: “I Already Hacked You” Scams”
Tag Archives: InfoSecTTP
Security Software – An Overview
I’ve spent nearly my entire professional career in software security: designing software to prevent abuse by bad actors. I’ve been battling the bad guys for over two decades now, from hunting security bugs in Microsoft Office (I once won an Xbox for finding a vulnerability that allowed malicious clipart take over your computer) to designingContinue reading “Security Software – An Overview”
Defensive Technology: Controlled Folder Access
Most client software’s threat models (e.g. Edge, Chrome) explicitly exclude threats where the local computer was compromised by malware. That’s because, without a trusted computing base, it’s basically impossible to be secure against attackers. This concept was immortalized decades ago in the Ten Immutable Laws of Security: In the intervening years, new technologies (like SecureContinue reading “Defensive Technology: Controlled Folder Access”
Defensive Technology: Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI)
Endpoint security software faces a tough challenge — it needs to be able to rapidly distinguish between desired and unwanted behavior with few false positives and false negatives, and attackers work hard to obfuscate (or cloak) their malicious code to prevent detection by security scanners. To maximize protection, security software wants visibility into attack chainsContinue reading “Defensive Technology: Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI)”
Attack Techniques: Encrypted Archives
Tricking a user into downloading and opening malware is a common attack technique, and defenders have introduced security scanners to many layers of the ecosystem in an attempt to combat the technique: With all this scanning in place, attackers have great incentives to try to prevent their malicious code from detection up until the momentContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Encrypted Archives”
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