Great R packages for data import, wrangling, and visualization
The table below shows my favorite go-to R packages for data import, wrangling, visualization and analysis — plus a few miscellaneous tasks tossed in. The package names in the table are clickable if you want more information. To find out more about a package once you’ve installed it, type help(package = "packagename") in your R […] more…IT threat evolution Q1 2021
Targeted attacks Putting the ‘A’ into APT In December, SolarWinds, a well-known IT managed services provider, fell victim to a sophisticated supply-chain attack. The company’s Orion IT, a solution for monitoring and managing customers’ IT infrastructure, was compromised by threat actors. This resulted in the deployment of a custom backdoor, named Sunburst, on the networks […] more…APT trends report Q1 2021
For four years, the Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) at Kaspersky has been publishing quarterly summaries of advanced persistent threat (APT) activity. The summaries are based on our threat intelligence research and provide a representative snapshot of what we have published and discussed in greater detail in our private APT reports. They are designed […] more…Spam and phishing in 2020
Figures of the year In 2020: The share of spam in email traffic amounted to 50.37%, down by 6.14 p.p. from 2019. Most spam (21.27%) originated in Russia. Kaspersky solutions detected a total of 184,435,643 malicious attachments. The email antivirus was triggered most frequently by email messages containing members of the Trojan.Win32.Agentb malware family. The […] more…The chronicles of Emotet
More than six years have passed since the banking Trojan Emotet was first detected. During this time it has repeatedly mutated, changed direction, acquired partners, picked up modules, and generally been the cause of high-profile incidents and multimillion-dollar losses. The malware is still in fine fettle, and remains one of the most potent cybersecurity threats […] more…The Tetrade: Brazilian banking malware goes global
Introduction Brazil is a well-known country with plenty of banking trojans developed by local crooks. The Brazilian criminal underground is home to some of the world’s busiest and most creative perpetrators of cybercrime. Like their counterparts’ in China and Russia, their cyberattacks have a strong local flavor, and for a long time, they limited their […] more…Pig in a poke: smartphone adware
Our support team continues to receive more and more requests from users complaining about intrusive ads on their smartphones from unknown sources. In some cases, the solution is quite simple. In others, the task is far harder: the adware plants itself in the system partition, and trying to get rid of it can lead to […] more…Magnitude exploit kit – evolution
Exploit kits are not as widespread as they used to be. In the past, they relied on the use of already patched vulnerabilities. Newer and more secure web browsers with automatic updates simply do not allow known vulnerabilities to be exploited. It was very different back in the heyday of Adobe Flash because it’s just […] more…New Android Spyware ActionSpy Revealed via Phishing Attacks from Earth Empusa
By Ecular Xu and Joseph C. Chen While tracking Earth Empura, also known as POISON CARP/Evil Eye, we identified an undocumented Android spyware we have named ActionSpy (detected by Trend Micro as AndroidOS_ActionSpy.HRX). During the first quarter of 2020, we observed Earth Empusa’s activity targeting users in Tibet and Turkey before they extended their scope […] more…IT threat evolution Q1 2020. Statistics
These statistics are based on detection verdicts for Kaspersky products received from users who consented to providing statistical data. Quarterly figures According to Kaspersky Security Network, Kaspersky solutions blocked 726,536,269 attacks launched from online resources in 203 countries across the globe. A total of 442,039,230 unique URLs were recognized as malicious by Web Anti-Virus components. […] more…Exposing Modular Adware: How DealPly, IsErIk, and ManageX Persist in Systems
By RonJay Caragay, Fe Cureg, Ian Lagrazon, Erika Mendoza, and Jay Yaneza (Threats Analysts) Adware isn’t new and they don’t spark much interest. A lot of them are overlooked and underestimated because they’re not supposed to cause harm — as its name suggests, adware is advertising-supported software. However, we have constantly observed suspicious activities caused […] more…More Than 8,000 Unsecured Redis Instances Found in the Cloud
By David Fiser (Security Researcher) We discovered 8,000 Redis instances that are running unsecured in different parts of the world, even ones deployed in public clouds. These Redis instances have been found without Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption and are not password protected. Redis, according to its developers, is originally intended to be used only […] more…Holy water: ongoing targeted water-holing attack in Asia
On December 4, 2019, we discovered watering hole websites that were compromised to selectively trigger a drive-by download attack with fake Adobe Flash update warnings. This campaign has been active since at least May 2019, and targets an Asian religious and ethnic group. The threat actor’s unsophisticated but creative toolset has been evolving a lot […] more…APT review: what the world’s threat actors got up to in 2019
What were the most interesting developments in terms of APT activity during the year and what can we learn from them? This is not an easy question to answer, because researchers have only partial visibility and it´s impossible to fully understand the motivation for some attacks or the developments behind them. However, let´s try to […] more…Cyberthreats to financial institutions 2020: Overview and predictions
Kaspersky Security Bulletin 2019. Advanced threat predictions for 2020 Cybersecurity of connected healthcare 2020: Overview and predictions 5G technology predictions 2020 Corporate security prediction 2020 Key events 2019 Large-scale anti-fraud bypass: Genesis digital fingerprints market uncovered Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and biometric challenges Targeted attack groups specializing in financial institutions: splitting and globalization ATM malware becomes […] more…A Cybersecurity Horror Story: October’s Creepiest Threats and How to Stay Secure
Halloween time is among us and ghosts and goblins aren’t the only things lurking in the shadows. This past month has brought a variety of spooky cyberthreats that haunt our networks and devices. From malicious malware to restricting ransomware, October has had its fair share of cyber-scares. Let’s take a look at what ghoulish threats […] more…More information
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