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Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Volume 21 | January through June, 2016 This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. This document is provided “as-is.” Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it. Copyright © 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Authors Charlie Anthe Michael Johnson Siddharth Pavithran Cloud and Enterprise Security Windows Defender Labs Windows Defender Labs Evan Argyle Jeff Jones Daryl Pecelj Windows Defender Labs Corporate Communications Microsoft IT Information Security and Risk Eric Douglas Tim Kerk Management Windows Defender Labs Windows Defender Labs Ferdinand Plazo Sarah Fender Mathieu Letourneau Windows Defender Labs Azure Security Windows Defender Labs Tim Rains Elia Florio Marianne Mallen Commercial Communications Windows Defender Labs Windows Defender Labs Paul Rebriy Chad Foster Matt Miller Bing Bing Microsoft Security Response Center Karthik Selvaraj Ram Gowrishankar Windows Defender Labs Windows Defender Labs Chad Mills Safety Platform Tom Shinder Volv Grebennikov Azure Security Bing Nam Ng Enterprise Cybersecurity Nitin Sood Paul Henry Group Windows Defender Labs Wadeware LLC Hamish O'Dea Tomer Teller Aaron Hulett Windows Defender Labs Azure Security Windows Defender Labs James Patrick Dee Vikram Thakur Ivo Ivanov Windows Defender Labs Windows Defender Labs Windows Defender Labs Contributors Eric Avena Satomi Hayakawa Heike Ritter Windows Defender Labs CSS Japan Security Response Windows and Devices Group Team Iaan D'Souza- Wiltshire Norie Tamura Windows Defender Labs Sue Hotelling CSS Japan Security Response Windows and Devices Group Team Dustin Duran Windows Defender Labs Yurika Kakiuchi Steve Wacker CSS Japan Security Response Wadeware LLC Tanmay Ganacharya Team Windows Defender Labs David Weston Louie Mayor Windows Defender Labs Chris Hallum Windows Defender Labs Windows and Devices Group Dolcita Montemayor Windows Defender Labs ii ABOUT THIS REPORT Table of contents About this report .......................................................................................................................... v How to use this report ............................................................................................................... vi Featured intelligence 1 Protecting cloud infrastructure: Detecting and mitigating threats using Azure Security Center .............................................................................................................................. 3 Threats against cloud deployments and infrastructure .......................................................... 3 The cyber kill chain: On-premises and in the cloud ................................................................. 7 Countering threats with Azure Security Center Advanced Threat Detection .................. 11 Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 20 PROMETHIUM and NEODYMIUM: Parallel zero-day attacks targeting individuals in Europe ....................................................................................................................................... 21 Activity Group Profile: PROMETHIUM ....................................................................................... 22 Activity Group Profile: NEODYMIUM ......................................................................................... 23 Mitigation .......................................................................................................................................... 29 Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 32 Indicators ........................................................................................................................................... 32 Ten years of exploits: A long-term study of exploitation of vulnerabilities in Microsoft software ..................................................................................................................... 35 Worldwide threat assessment 41 Vulnerabilities .............................................................................................................................. 43 Industry-wide vulnerability disclosures ..................................................................................... 43 Vulnerability severity ...................................................................................................................... 44 Vulnerability complexity ................................................................................................................ 46 Operating system, browser, and application vulnerabilities................................................ 47 Microsoft vulnerability disclosures .............................................................................................. 49 Guidance: Developing secure software .................................................................................... 49 Exploits ........................................................................................................................................... 51 Exploit families .................................................................................................................................. 53 Exploit kits .......................................................................................................................................... 54 Java exploits ...................................................................................................................................... 57 MICROSOFT SECURITY INTELLIGENCE REPORT, VOLUME 21, JANUARY–JUNE 2016 iii Operating system exploits ............................................................................................................ 59 Document exploits ........................................................................................................................... 61 Adobe Flash Player exploits ......................................................................................................... 62 Browser exploits .............................................................................................................................. 64 Exploit detection with Internet Explorer and IExtensionValidation .................................... 65 Exploits used in targeted attacks ................................................................................................ 66 Malicious and unwanted software ........................................................................................ 71 Learning about new threats with cloud-based protection in Windows Defender........ 73 Malicious and unwanted software worldwide ......................................................................... 73 Threat categories ............................................................................................................................. 81 Threat families .................................................................................................................................. 85 Ransomware ..................................................................................................................................... 92 Threats from targeted attackers ................................................................................................. 97 Potentially unwanted applications in the enterprise ............................................................ 101 Security software use ................................................................................................................... 104 Guidance: Defending against malware ....................................................................................109 Malicious websites..................................................................................................................... 111 Phishing sites ................................................................................................................................... 112 Malware hosting sites ................................................................................................................... 116 Drive-by download sites .............................................................................................................. 119 Guidance: Protecting users from unsafe websites ................................................................122 Malware at Microsoft: Dealing with threats in the Microsoft environment .......... 123 Antimalware usage ........................................................................................................................123 Malware detections ...................................................................................................................... 124 Malware infections ......................................................................................................................... 127 What IT departments can do to protect their users .............................................................129 Appendixes 133 Appendix A: Threat naming conventions ........................................................................
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