Thursday, October 08, 2009

what is credentialed malware?

credentialed malware is essentially (and perhaps more aptly described as) multi-user malware. not multi-victim malware, mind you, but multi-attacker - it is designed to be used by multiple attackers with differing levels of access to the malware's collection of functionality.

credentialed malware really only makes sense in the context of a criminal organization where different members of that organization have different roles and different levels of trust.

it also only make sense (from a tactical perspective) in cases where attackers would need to physically access the compromised machine(s) (ie. a public kiosk) in order to pull of a successful attack. if the machine could be accessed remotely or if the machine could send data out to remote destinations then there would be no need to employ multiple human agents to mask the maneuvers required to make the attack work.

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(thanks go to nicholas percoco and jibran ilyas for introducing me to this concept)

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