Topical Research Reports

As part of the Enhanced and Comprehensive levels of VeriSign® iDefense® Security Intelligence Services, customers receive topical research papers containing in-depth analysis on a specific issue related to cyber security. Delivered as a PDF by email or through the VeriSign® iDefense® Intelligence Portal, reports explore specific threats identified by VeriSign and issues that our customers have asked us to explore further.

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	2008.07.09: Cyber Fraud Trends 2008 Financial institutions worldwide face an ever-increasing number of malicious code and phishing attacks that adapt and mature constantly. Regulators and industry promote authentication as panacea while the crooks are developing and deploying highly specialized Trojans designed to target and circumvent multifactor authentication schemes. Hijacking transactions that a user has initiated and authorized is the newest of these targeted threats. This technique has been discussed theoretically for some time but has now left the malware labs and is actively being used in real world attacks. Technology and implementation are important factors for the effectiveness of multifactor authentication schemes and even strong technologies with correct implementations that thwart transaction-hijacking attempts have weaknesses that might constitute a surface for future attack scenarios.
	2008.06.04: BBB: A Threat Analysis of Targeted Spear-Phishing Attacks Since February 2007, organized groups of cyber criminals have launched more than 50 waves of highly targeted cyber fraud scams, impacting corporations and governments alike. These attacks use a social engineering technique, called "spear phishing" and sometimes "whaling," to trick a user into installing malicious code, which allows the attacker to collect valuable data from the compromised computer. Organizations of all types and sizes must immediately deal with the risks these attacks pose to internal staff and customers, each for their own reasons. Financial institutions face special risks from these attacks due to the specific and aggressive targeting of their customers and applications, while government and contracting organizations stand to leak vital strategic and national defense data. Because these fraudsters target specific corporate employees with high levels of access, and because they aggressively use the stolen information, these types of attacks are more dangerous than conventional Internet fraud schemes.
	2008.05.07: IFrame Attacks - An Examination of the Business of IFrame Exploitation When users open a Web page with Internet Explorer, Firefox or any other Web browser, they only notice the page they typed in the address bar. Regular users rarely realize that, to resolve some pages completely, their computers must connect to other, often unknown websites. Few users are aware of these in-line frames, or "IFrames," since they are transparent to everyday users. Browsers use IFrames to load another website into the one the user knows they are viewing. A design feature of the Web browsing experience, through many popular browsers, IFrames were not designed for malicious purposes, but their simplicity has made them ideal attack vectors for malicious interests. The actors behind IFrame exploitation attacks are working very hard to make the largest amount of money, in the shortest amount of time, and without getting caught. Every technical aspect of these attacks represents a convenient way to carry out widespread attacks for maximum profit and minimal exposure. While most readers might not necessarily understand the technical aspects of these attacks, they should still have a conceptual understanding of both the technology and the fraudsters behind this new brand of online theft costing millions of dollars per year. These groups continue to find ways to attack businesses and their consumers to collectively steal billions of dollars per year. Phishing attacks that use social engineering are successful, but have many technological roadblocks to deal with. By using malicious codes, mostly Trojan horses, to steal banking credentials and perform transaction hijacking attacks, malicious actors can target a wider group of banking customers and steal more data. Exploiting vulnerabilities through IFrames is simply the technological means to carry out these attacks.