Windows 10: Windows Defender Provides Powerful Protection Against Malwares According to Recent Research

Cyber_Defend_Team · Sep 3, 2018

There are many discussions that whether Windows Defender is doing a good job in protecting you against malwares or it is just a basic protection and you will need to purchase another Anti-Malware product? Everyone has right to select whatever Anti-Malware they wish to use for their personal reasons, but for those who want to keep using Windows Defender inside Windows 10, the good news is independence research institute done a research and proof that Windows Defender is doing great job in protecting you against known and unknown malwares. Their latest test was on May-Jun 2018 and during that period Windows Defender proves its powerful protection. Since this is independent report from trusted third-party researcher and we could see detail research methodology in their website, we could say Windows Defender is doing great job in protecting users globally and you may use it with peace of mind, take a look at AV-Test report about Windows Defender to learn more:

https://www.av-test.org/en/antiviru...osoft-windows-defender-antivirus-4.12-182374/

Also, note that Anti-Malware is only one protection layer and defense mechanism in Windows while Windows comes with other protection features.

:)

Kursah · Sep 3, 2018

According to Windows Defender DDU has Malware in it.

Add DDU to the exclusion list either from there or the settings for Defender. Then you'll be fine. I've used DDU for years, and as-long-as you downloaded it from a reputable source you should be fine. If they offer MD5 hash checks that might be worth doing to make sure though if you're concerned your version is malicious.

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&ie=UTF-8#q=Windows+Defender+how+to+whitelist

*Toast :toast:

Jsssssssss · Sep 3, 2018

Windows 10 Defender Malware Protection

You have to decide for yourself which Anti-Virus program you want to use...

Suggestion to read:

Choosing an Anti-Virus Program

Safe Steps for Replacing your Anti-virus - Why should you use Antivirus
software?

Supplementing your Anti-Virus Program with Anti-Malware Tools

and also the other interesting and informational topics covered in:
Best Practices for Safe Computing - Prevention of Malware Infection

In addition you might want to read one or the other thread from this search:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/search/search?SearchTerm=Windows+10+Antivirus&IsSuggestedTerm=false&tab=&isFilterExpanded=false&CurrentScope.ForumName=protect&CurrentScope.Filter=&ContentTypeScope=#/protect//Discussion/1

Also see:

Consumer antivirus software providers for Windows

Windows Defender Security Center

Configure Windows Defender Security Center

Windows Defender Security Center on-demand scan

Windows Defender in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10

Configure Windows Defender in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10

Windows Defender on-demand scan in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10

Brink · Sep 3, 2018

Windows 10: protection against recent Depriz malware attacks

A few weeks ago, multiple organizations in the Middle East fell victim to targeted and destructive attacks that wiped data from computers, and in many cases rendering them unstable and unbootable. Destructive attacks like these have been observed repeatedly over the years and the Windows Defender and Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Threat Intelligence teams are working on protection, detection, and response to these threats.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence identified similarities between this recent attack and previous 2012 attacks against tens of thousands of computers belonging to organizations in the energy sector. Microsoft Threat Intelligence refers to the activity group behind these attacks as TERBIUM, following our internal practice of assigning rogue actors chemical element names.

Although the extent of damage caused by this latest attack by TERBIUM is still unknown, Windows 10 customers are protected. Windows 10 has built-in proactive security components, such as Device Guard, that mitigate this threat; Windows Defender customers are protected through multiple signature-based detections; and Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) customers are provided extensive visibility and detection capabilities across the attack kill chain, enabling security operation teams to respond quickly. Microsoft’s analysis has shown that the components and techniques used by TERBIUM in this campaign trigger multiple detections and threat intelligence alerts in Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection.

Attack composition

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed that the malware used by TERBIUM, dubbed “Depriz” by Microsoft, reuses several components and techniques seen in the 2012 attacks, and has been highly customized for each targeted organization.

We do not see any indicators that a zero-day exploit is being used by TERBIUM.

Step 1: Writing to disk

The initial infection vector TERBIUM uses is unknown. As credentials have been hard-coded in the malware TERBIUM uses, it is suspected that TERBIUM has harvested credentials or infiltrated the target organization previously. Once TERBIUM has a foothold in the organization, its infection chain starts by writing an executable file to disk that contains all the components required to carry out the data-wiping operation. These components are encoded in the executables resources as fake bitmap images.

Figure 1. The components of the Trojan are fake bitmap images

We decoded the components as the following files:

PKCS12 – a destructive disk wiper component

PKCS7 – a communication module

X509 – 64-bit variant of the Trojan/implant

Step 2: Propagation and persistence through the target network

We have seen TERBIUM use hardcoded credentials embedded in the malware to propagate within a local network. The availability of these credentials to the activity group suggests that the attacks are highly targeted at specific enterprises.

The propagation and persistence is carried out as follows:

First, it tries to start the RemoteRegistry service on the computer it is trying to copy itself to, then uses RegConnectRegistryW to connect to it.

Next, it attempts to disable UAC remote restrictions by setting the LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy registry key value to “1”.

Once this is done, it connects to the target computer and copies itself as %System%\ntssrvr32.exe or %System%\ntssrvr64.exe before setting either a remote service called “ntssv” or a scheduled task.

Step 3: Wiping the machine

Next, the Trojan installs the wiper component. Note: TERBIUM establishes a foothold throughout the organization and does not proceed with the destructive wiping operation until a specific date/time: November 17, 2016 at 8:45 p.m.

The wiper component is installed as %System%\<random name>.exe. During our testing, it used the name “routeman.exe”, but static analysis shows it can use several other names that attempt to imitate file names of legitimate system tools.

The wiper component also contains encoded files in its resources as fake bitmap images.

The first encoded resource is a legitimate driver called RawDisk from the Eldos Corporation that allows a user mode component raw disk access. The driver is saved as %System%\drivers\drdisk.sys and installed by creating a service pointing to it using “sc create” and “sc start”. This behavior can be observed in the process tree available in the Windows Defender ATP portal. The below alert represents an example of the generic detections in Windows Defender ATP:

Figure 2. Windows Defender ATP alert: Depriz starting ephemeral service to load RawDisk driver “drdisk”

Figure 3. Windows Defender ATP event tree: Depriz Trojan dropping the wiper component (named “routeman” in this instance), which in turn drops the RawDisk driver “drdisk”

There are two interesting things worth noting about RawDisk:

It requires a valid license key from Eldos Corporation to run. However, the license key included in Depriz is the same as the one used in the 2012 attacks – and this license key was only valid for a short period in 2012. TERBIUM works around this by changing the system time on targeted computers to a valid period in 2012.

It is the same as the driver used in the 2012 attacks.

Figure 4. Depriz license key (the same as the one used in 2012 attacks) and its limited validity period

The wiper component uses an image file to overwrite files in locations listed in the following:

Master Boot Records (MBR)

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SystemBootDevice

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FirmwareBootDevice

C:\Windows\System32\Drivers

C:\Windows\System32\Config\systemprofile

Typical user folders like “Desktop”, “Downloads”, “Documents”, “Pictures”, “Videos” and “Music”

Microsoft is also aware of a second threat that uses a distinct wiping component. We detect this as Trojan:Win32/Cadlotcorg.A!dha in Defender and generic detections with Defender ATP. Microsoft is continuing to monitor for additional information on this threat.

Step 4: Rendering the machine unusable

Finally, the following command is used to reboot the system into the intended unusable state:

shutdown -r -f -t 2

When the computer attempts to restart after shutting down, it is unable to find the operating system because the MBR was overwritten in step 3. The machine will no longer boot properly.

Mitigation: Multiple layers of protection from Microsoft

Windows 10 protects, detects and responds to this threat. Windows 10 has built-in proactive security components, such as Device Guard, that mitigate this threat by restricting execution to trusted applications and kernel drivers.

In addition, Windows Defender detects and remediates all components on endpoints as Trojan:Win32/Depriz.A!dha, Trojan:Win32/Depriz.B!dha, Trojan:Win32/Depriz.C!dha, and Trojan:Win32/Depriz.D!dha.

Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), our post-breach security service, provides an additional layer of security to enterprise users. With threat intelligence indicators, generic detections, and machine learning models, Windows Defender ATP (trial link) provides extensive visibility and detection capabilities across the attack kill chain of threats like TERBIUM.

Appendix – Indicators of compromise

We discovered the following SHA1s in relation to TERBIUM:

SHA1 hashes for malicious files

5c52253b0a2741c4c2e3f1f9a2f82114a254c8d6

e7c7f41babdb279c099526ece03ede9076edca4e

a2669df6f7615d317f610f731b6a2129fbed4203

425f02028dcc4e89a07d2892fef9346dac6c140a

ad6744c7ea5fee854261efa403ca06b68761e290

SHA1 hashes for legitimate RawDisk drivers

1292c7dd60214d96a71e7705e519006b9de7968f

ce549714a11bd43b52be709581c6e144957136ec

Signature names for malicious files

Trojan:Win32/Depriz.A!dha

Trojan:Win32/Depriz.B!dha

Trojan:Win32/Depriz.C!dha

Trojan:Win32/Depriz.D!dha

Mathieu Letourneau
Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Threat Intelligence Team
Click to expand...

Source: Windows 10: protection, detection, and response against recent Depriz malware attacks Microsoft Malware Protection Center

Windows 10: Windows Defender Provides Powerful Protection Against Malwares According to Recent Research

Windows Defender Provides Powerful Protection Against Malwares According to Recent Research

Windows Defender Provides Powerful Protection Against Malwares According to Recent Research

Windows Defender Provides Powerful Protection Against Malwares According to Recent Research

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