Malware For Sale

[Lee B]

"Google researchers said on Wednesday they have linked a Barcelona, Spain-based IT company to the sale of advanced software frameworks that exploit vulnerabilities in Chrome, Firefox, and Windows Defender.

Variston IT bills itself as a provider of tailor-made information security solutions, including: technology for embedded SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) and Internet of Things integrators; custom security patches for proprietary systems; tools for data discovery; security training; and the development of secure protocols for embedded devices. According to a report from Google’s Threat Analysis Group, Variston sells another product not mentioned on its website: software frameworks that provide everything a customer needs to surreptitiously install malware on devices they want to spy on!"

 

In the world today, where everything is for sale including our personal data, I am not surprised.

We are so far down a slippery slope, how do we recover? How do we fix this?

[mcbreck]

Malware has been for sale on the TOR dark web for years. The CIA had a suite of spy software and it was stolen and put on the web for purchase.

 

https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/07/cia-ios-malware-wikileaks/

 

A long time ago (18-20 years ago?) the US Government / CIA used malware to get into the databases of Petrobras the Brazilian oil company. They then gave it to US oil companies so they had an advantage in negotiations.

[Lee B]

What caught my attention was that this was a commercial IT firm with a public presence that specialized in IT security consulting and projects.