Google launches Google Drive, upgrades Gmail to 10 GB for all users

Google has launched Google Drive, a cloud storage service where users can upload and access all of their files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond. The service is offering new users 5GB of storage for free with upgrades starting at 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. Google also increased the free storage in Gmail from the existing 7.5 GB to 10 GB to all users.

“Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future,” Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome and Apps, Google has said.

Watch Out for Trojans Circulating in PDFs

Websense Security Labs warns of Zbot campaign; an information stealing trojan

That PDF File You Are Storing Can be Dangerous

New Zbot campaign comes in a PDF

Websense Security Labs has received several reports of a Zbot trojan campaign spreading via email that connects your PC to a malicious remote server in China. They have seen over 2,200 messages so far.

Zbot (also known as Zeus) is an information stealing trojan (infostealer) collecting confidential data from each infected computer. The main vector for spreading Zbot is a spam campaign where recipients are tricked into opening infected attachments on their computer.

This new variant uses a malicious PDF file which contains the threat as an embedded file. When recipients open the PDF, it asks to save a PDF file called Royal_Mail_Delivery_Notice.pdf. The user assumes that the file is just a PDF, and therefore safe to store on the local computer. The file, however, is really a Windows executable. The malicious PDF launches the dropped file, taking control of the computer. At the time of writing, this file has a 20 perecnt anti-virus detection rate (SHA1 : f1ff07104b7c6a08e06bededd57789e776098b1f).

Location of the Zbot:

The Zbot trojan creates a subdirectory under %SYSTEM32% with the name “lowsec” and drops the “local.ds” and “user.ds” files. The “local.ds” and “user.ds”  are configuration files for the threat. It also drops an executable “sdra64.exe” and modifies the registry entry “%SOFTWARE%\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Userinit” to launch itself during system startup. When it runs, it injects malicious code into the Winlogon.exe instance in memory. This Zbot variant connects to malicious remote sever in China using an IP address of 59.44.[removed].[removed]:6010.
This is yet another hacking attempt pointing to China, which is kinda alarming and makes one wonder if China is quietly planning to go big on this. Make sure you’ve updated your anti-virus suites with latest definitions in order to keep your PC from malicious data. Also, avoid downloading any PDF from unknown senders.