Blog - VMRay

2018-09-02

DEF CON CTF Finals: An Inside View

Hello everyone, My name is Tobias Scharnowski (@ScepticCtf). I’m a student employee at VMRay and a member of FluxFingers, the official Capture the Flag (CTF) team at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), supported by VMRay and also part of the German team, Sauercloud. This August, my FluxFingers teammates and I traveled

Malware Analysis Product Features

2018-08-21

How to Use Interactive Malware Analysis with VMRay Analyzer

[Editor’s Note: This post was updated on May 19th, 2020] In the daily war against malware authors, incident response teams (CIRTs) need a comprehensive yet versatile sandbox as part of their automated malware analysis process. This provides the performance, scalability, and accuracy needed to handle the onslaught of malware-related threats.

Malware Analysis Product Features

2018-08-07

Forgotten MS Office Features Used to Deliver Malware

According to Microsoft’s 2016 Threat Intelligence Report, 98% of Office-targeted threats use macros. So, shouldn’t we just focus our efforts on detecting threats that leverage macros? Of course not. Attackers will constantly innovate. Finding ways to bypass existing security solutions and making malware easy to execute are top of mind

Product Features

2018-07-13

VMRay Analyzer v2.3: Pairing Superior Performance with Exceptional Detection Efficacy

At the core of VMRay Analyzer is our dynamic analysis engine. Built on an agentless hypervisor-based approach, it delivers unparalleled detection efficacy and evasion resistance. In Version 2.0, we added a rapid reputation engine allowing malware analysts and incident response (DFIR) professionals to quickly identify not only known threats but

Cybersecurity

2018-06-18

How Parallel Lives Converged to Create VMRay

In hindsight, it looks like Carsten Willems and Ralf Hund, the co-founders of VMRay, were destined to follow the same path for an extended period in their lives. Since first meeting in 2007, they have studied alongside each other, collaborated on groundbreaking research, started a company (VMRay), based in their

Malware Analysis

2018-06-05

The Evolution of GandCrab Ransomware

[Editor’s Note: This post was updated on July 9th, 2018 with analysis of Gandcrab v4] Like legitimate commercial software, commercial malware also needs a viable business model. For ransomware, the most popular business model is now Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS). RaaS focuses on selling ransomware as an easy-to-use service, opening up a

Cybersecurity

2018-05-22

Beyond the EU, GDPR Creates New Risks and Obligations

At the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco, I spent a good deal of time meeting with VMRay partners to discuss their preparations for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The regulation, which takes effect on May 25, creates a new framework for safeguarding the personal data and privacy rights

Cybersecurity

2018-03-19

Risky Business Podcast: VMRay Analyzer 2.2’s Unparalleled Usability & Seamless High-Volume Analysis

VMRay’s agentless hypervisor-based analyzer was featured on the latest Snake Oilers episode of the Risky Business podcast. I spoke to host Patrick Gray about the guiding philosophy for VMRay Analyzer 2.2: to deliver unparalleled usability and effectiveness for all DFIR specialists and malware analysts, regardless of skill level. We also

Malware Analysis

2018-03-07

VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap – February 2018

Welcome to the VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap. Every month our Research Team provides a recap of the malware analysis reports posted to the VMRay Twitter account. This past February, our team analyzed Black Ruby ransomware, Cobalt Strike Beacon and a Javascript file attempting to detect VMs via the registry.

Product Features

2018-02-15

VMRay Analyzer 2.2 – An Improved User Experience for Malware Analysts and Incident Responders

At VMRay, our underlying malware detection and analysis technology clearly sets us apart from the competition. With the release of VMRay Analyzer 2.2, we’ve focused on: improving the user experience enhancing our detection efficacy and providing more valuable threat intelligence to malware analysts and incident responders. The latest release has

Malware Analysis

2018-02-07

VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap – January 2018

Welcome to the VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap. Every month our Research Team provides a recap of the malware analysis reports posted to the VMRay Twitter account. This past January, our team analyzed a variant of BigEyes/Lime ransomware, GandCrab ransomware and Lotus Blossom malspam. Click the links below to jump

Malware Analysis Product Features

2018-02-01

[Video] Analyzing a Payload Out of Context

Malware authors have become creative with how they have chosen to package their payload to evade detection. Office documents have been used as a common vector of entry in the following way: a Word document uses a macro to launch PowerShell and download a malicious payload. While detonating the original

Product Features

2018-01-31

VMRay Analyzer Adds Sophos URL Threat Intelligence Service for Enhanced Detection of Malicious Websites

Our core belief at VMRay is to provide DFIR Specialists and Incident Responders with the most comprehensive analysis on the market. Since the introduction of our Reputation Engine in VMRay Analyzer 2.0, we’ve delivered a comprehensive one-two punch for analysts to quickly diagnose and triage malicious files. Today, we are

Cybersecurity Product Features

2018-01-12

Our Statement on Spectre and Meltdown

Spectre and Meltdown are attack methodologies enabled by fundamental processor design principles. In particular, they exploit unwanted side effects of caching, speculative/out-of-order execution, and branch target prediction. These features are part of most modern CPUs (Intel, AMD, ARM) and were widely introduced into production in the 1990s to enhance performance.

Malware Analysis

2018-01-09

VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap – December ’17

Welcome to the VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap. Every month our Research Team provides a recap of the malware analysis reports posted to the VMRay Twitter account. This past December, our team analyzed a variant of Globeimposter ransomware, a Windows Script File (WSF) that downloads a payload to set-up a

Product Features

2017-12-12

VMRay Email Sensor: Automated Analysis and Detection of Malicious Email

The average corporate employee will receive 75 emails per day. So it’s no surprise that email is still an integral part of daily business processes. With two-thirds of all malware installed via email attachments in 2016 (according to the Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report), it is critical to ensure

Cybersecurity

2017-12-12

Risky Business Podcast: Using VMRay Analyzer for Incident Response

Recently, VMRay sponsored the 480th episode of the popular weekly information security podcast, Risky Business. On the podcast, Incident Response Expert Koen Van Impe, spoke to host Patrick Gray about how he uses VMRay Analyzer for automated malware analysis. Koen gave a great overview of the real-world challenges IR practitioners

Malware Analysis

2017-12-05

VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap – November ’17

Welcome to the VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap. Every month our Research Team provides a recap of the malware analysis reports posted to the VMRay Twitter account. This past November, our team analyzed a malicious Javascript file, the Ordinypt wiper, and a variant of the XZZX Cryptomix ransomware. Click the

Connectors

2017-11-27

VMRay & Phantom: Protecting Organizations from Malicious Email

The VMRay App for Phantom seamlessly integrates Phantom’s security automation and orchestration platform with VMRay’s agentless malware detection and analysis. This enables security teams to mitigate the risk of potentially malicious files through fast, automated threat detection and analysis. In this video, we present a simple Phantom playbook that automatically

Malware Analysis

2017-11-07

VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap – October ’17

Welcome to the VMRay Malware Analysis Report Recap. Every month our Research Team provides a recap of the malware analysis reports posted to the VMRay Twitter account. This past October, our team analyzed a Word document using a sandbox evasion technique, the execution of shellcode via Dynamic Data Exchange, and

Malware Analysis

2017-10-18

DDE Ransomware in a Macro-less Word Document

Malware Family: Vortex SHA256 Hash Value: bd61559c7dcae0edef672ea922ea5cf15496d18cc8c1cbebee9533295c2d2ea9 View the Full VMRay Analyzer Report Macros in Microsoft Office have been used extensively by malware authors as a mechanism to download and execute a malicious payload on a system. Defensive measures introduced by Microsoft such as disabling macros by default have not

Malware Analysis

2017-10-17

Persistent Emotet Malware with a Crafty Social Engineering Technique

Malware Family: Emotet SHA256 455be9278594633944bfdada541725a55e5ef3b7189ae13be8b311848d473b53 View the Full VMRay Analyzer Report With security ever more tightly integrated into operating systems, malware authors often rely on the unwitting participation of an end user to enable malicious action. Social engineering techniques have evolved significantly over the years and last week the VMRay

Malware Analysis Product Features

2017-10-05

6 Ways Intelligent Monitoring Improves Malware Analysis Accuracy & Efficiency

This is the second blog in a two-part series describing how VMRay Analyzer’s Intelligent Monitoring capabilities remove the noise from malware analysis. Read part one. VMRay Analyzer’s hypervisor-based monitoring approach provides total visibility into the behavior of a sample under analysis and enables monitoring only parts of the system related

Malware Analysis Product Features

2017-09-27

Intelligent Monitoring: Removing the Noise from Malware Analysis

This blog post is the first in a two-part series describing how VMRay Analyzer’s Intelligent Monitoring capabilities remove the noise from malware analysis. In dealing with potentially malicious files, incident responders and IT security teams are swamped with information in the form of log files, reports, alerts, and notifications. As

Malware Analysis Product Features

2017-09-21

Preventing Sandbox Evasion with Randomized Filenames

In the malware analysis community, it is common to rename a malware sample to its hash value or add the hash to the filename. This helps analysts easily identify a sample and to store it with a unique filename. This strategy saves time and empowers collaboration. A drawback, however, is

Cybersecurity Product Features

2017-09-05

Agentless Detection – Locard’s Exchange Principle Applied to Cybersecurity

Marketing departments of Cybersecurity vendors around the globe go into overdrive when they can shout from the rooftops that their solution is ‘agentless’. Sure, that sounds good, but why is this so important? And what is truly agentless? To appreciate the importance of an agentless approach, we’ll go old school

Malware Analysis

2017-08-21

Poweliks Malware – Filelessly Persistent

Malware Family: Poweliks Hash Value SHA256: 4727b7ea70d0fc00f96a28de7fa3d97fa 9d0b253bd63ae54fbbf0bd0c8b766bb View the Full Poweliks Malware Analysis Report One of the key features released in VMRay Analyzer v2.1 is the enhanced analysis of fileless malware (also referred to as “non-malware”). Fileless malware is defined by malware analysis expert Lenny Zeltser as “..malware that

Malware Analysis Product Features

2017-08-09

Password Protected Word Document Connects to TOR Hidden Service

Hash Value SHA256: 3a813df1c8f1e835cc98dd60b799c64e61 db51a259ee30b7235004ccb3c9df64 View the Full Password Protected Word Document Analysis Report Password protected documents are an effective method for malware to bypass anti-virus (AV) and other detection solutions. Typically the AV will not be able to parse the password required from the text of the email used

Product Features

2017-07-17

VMRay Analyzer v2.1 Enhances Detection Efficacy & Fileless Malware Analysis

In the new release of VMRay Analyzer v2.1, we've enhanced detection efficacy and fileless malware analysis for DFIR Specialists and CERTs.

Product Features

2017-07-14

Built-In YARA Rulesets for Increased Efficacy and Classification

YARA is an open source tool that helps malware researchers identify and classify malware by family based on known binary patterns and strings. YARA works by ingesting rules and applying them against various elements of the analysis (such as files and registry keys) to flag potentially malicious files and processes.

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