Visual Basic Malware Continues Resurgence

By Brian Prince on September 16, 2014
 
What's old is new again.
 
In a follow-up to a report earlier this year on the reappearance of visual basic code in malicious documents, researchers at Sophos have found that the trend has not only continued - it's increased.
 
According to new research, Sophos' most recent detection statistics show that the percentage of macro-based malware rose from around six percent of all document malware in June to 28 percent in July.

 
Visual Basic code offers attackers some benefits, Graham Chantry, senior security researcher at SophosLabs, noted in his report.
 
"Few users run without any anti-virus software these days meaning malware families are forced to change form continuously in an effort to evade detection," he wrote. "An exploit’s file structure is usually quite rigid which makes tweaking it without breaking its functionality difficult. Visual Basic code is easy to write, flexible and easy to refactor. Similar functionality can often be expressed in many different ways which gives malware authors more options for producing distinct, workable versions of their software than they have with exploits.
 
 
SecurityWeek/ full article here/ http://www.securityweek.com/visual-basic-malware-continues-resurgence