AT&T’s Digital Forensic Incident Response (DFIR) team has been observing cybercriminal organizations steadily increase their ransomware capabilities over the last few years. We have seen ransomware grow in sophistication and capability at a rapid pace. So rapidly in fact, that each investigation shows a new tactic or change in the binary program responsible for encrypting clients’ data.

The ability of an actor to remain undiscovered or obfuscating its doings when driving a malicious campaign usually affects the gains of such campaigns. These gains can be measured in different items such as time to allow completion of operations (exfiltration, movement of compromised data), ability to remain operative before take down notices are issued, or ability to obtain gains based on for-profit driven crimeware (DDoS for hire, Crypto mining).

You may be surprised to learn that a particular malware is responsible for data theft in over 20% of financial institutions and other verticals in 2019. Watering hole attacks involve a web server that hosts files or applications where the website or files on the site become weaponized with malware. While recent news cycles have shined a spotlight on ransomware and crimeware, malware is not a new concept.

Businesses remain under a constant threat of being attacked by malware through a variety of different attack vectors. Malware is an abbreviation used for malicious software. Malware has been one of the most prominent threats since the very beginning of the origin of the internet and still pertains to be so. Malware is an umbrella term, and it includes virus, trojan horse, ransomware, worm, spyware, adware, etc. In this article, we will be focussing on spyware and adware.

As companies invest in stronger firewalls and better IT infrastructure, brute force attacks have become harder to pull off. That’s the good news. The bad news is that hackers, in turn, have found new ways of wreaking havoc. The increasing use of ransomware as a weapon is a prime example of this. Through phishing or stolen passwords, a ransomware attack can sabotage a company’s most valuable asset, it’s content, without being detected.

LNKR malware uses browser extensions in Googles Chrome to track browsing movements and activities of users and then overlays ads on legitimate websites. Using extensions to add code that executes in a user’s browser is a common and lucrative monetization technique on the internet, where spyware, adware, and other browser-based nuisances have thrived since the early days.

Malware attacks are evolving and once common tactics are becoming a thing of the past. Attack strategies, like using a third-party hacking program or injecting viruses from external sources, are almost obsolete as they leave a distinct footprint. Most antimalware tools can now detect the presence of a foreign program or device and immediately block them.