Context Adaptive Scanning Engine: Protecting Against the Broadest Range of Blended Threats
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Email threats are getting more and more sophisticated as spam, viruses, phishing, and spyware blend together. Learn how to thwart todays sophisticated blended threats.
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Security researchers release code that shows how a pair of widely used technologies could be misused to take control of a victim's Web browsing experience.
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MIT researchers develop an authentication system that's not so easily revealed to prying eyes.
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A remote attacker could take complete control over computers running many versions of Microsoft software by inserting malicious code in a JPEG image that executes through an unchecked buffer
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Unpatched Windows machines are vulnerable to latest adware attack
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The rise of customized malware is forcing security software vendors to change their tactics quickly and begin using customers' machines as their initial line of threat detection intelligence, according to a new report from Yankee Group.Echoing recent comments made by industry leaders like Symantec -- which is considering white-listing techniques, among many other emerging plans, to thwart the trend toward so-called server-side polymorphism -- Yankee Group Analyst Andrew Jaquith writes in a new research note that "herd intelligence" will be one of the most effective ways for vendors to detect and address increasingly customized threats.By turning their customers' endpoint devices into malware collectors that can funnel information about new attacks back into their global networks of threat sensors and scanning technologies, Jaquith said, security applications vendors may make faster progress in stemming the tide of lower profile, smaller volume threats.As malware authors have begun enlisting more malware toolkits and other technological means to create a greater number of attack variants than can be found and processed by honeypots and signature-based security software tools, the analyst said, it will become vital for vendors to aggregate threat data using customers' computers.Some smaller vendors, including ESET, Panda Security, Prevx, and Sana Security, have already begun working in such a fashion, turning their deployed endpoints into collectors.Larger vendors looking to add that type of technology to their pallets could seek to acquire one of those vendors, Sana in particular, to advance their plans more rapidly, Jaquith contends.The idea is simple, according to the analyst. If attackers are going to attempt to create different attacks for nearly every individual user, then security software vendors must use their customers' machines as their eyes and ears for discovering and addressing those variants.On the flip side, as the vendors amass information about new attacks, they can simultaneously help other customers determine whether new applications or Web sites are dangerous or safe to use, the analyst said."When an unknown binary attempts to execute, the client-side agent sends detailed telemetry information to a remote centralized server and asks whether it is good, bad, or unknown," said Jaquith. "The server makes a disposition decision based on all the collective history accumulated by the herd. By pooling information about all executing programs across its installed base, the herd makes smarter decisions and can confer immunity faster to new variants."As part of the effort, security vendors may also need to begin sharing more of that information with their rivals to create a larger network effect for thwarting malware on a global basis, according to the expert.It may be hard to convince rival vendors to work together because of the perception that it could lessen differentiation between their respective products and services, but if the process clearly aids on the process of quelling the rising tide of new malware strains, the software makers may have little choice other than to partner, he said."By turning every endpoint into a malware collector, the herd network effectively turns into a giant honeypot that can see more than existing monitoring networks," said Jaquith. "Scale enables the herd to counter malware authors' strategy of spraying huge volumes of unique malware samples with, in essence, an Internet-sized sensor network."Herd intelligence is not without its downsides However, despite the advantages of moving to a herd mentality model, the expert recognizes that there might be significant obstacles for vendors to overcome in making such a transition -- including the cost of shifting away form their existing malware signature creation and distribution methodology.Among the biggest issues for anti-malware vendors to consider is the issue of false positives as many legitimate or nefarious programs may be misclassified by one vendor or the other, and behavior detection-based tools will still be needed to keep an eye out for sites and applications that have been compromised.Customers may represent another hurdle, Jaquith said, as not all companies will initially be comfortable with sharing the necessary level of access with vendors, and some may fear that such a system could offer new opportunities for data loss. Prevx, for one, is already dealing with the issue of privacy by guaranteeing that the only information being sent over its pipelines from customer PCs is related to executable files.An even larger problem could be the "data glut" generated by the herd anti-malware networks."Telemetric data provided by herd endpoints will be substantial," said Jaquith. "Anti-malware vendors will need to spend significant millions of dollars of capital to create scalable infrastructures to collect, process, and store data furnished by endpoints."The white lists of legitimate applications maintained by anti-virus vendors will also need to be updated frequently to address the release of approved programs and patches, a process that will require even additional levels of cooperation between many different types of software makers, he said.Along similar lines, Symantec researchers recently detailed a new program through which they are gathering detailed information about software applications installed onto the computers of customers using its desktop anti-malware suite.Using an opt-out participation model, the experiment studies the behavior and distribution details of individual programs to help make recommendations to users about which programs they decide to install or avoid."Right now, this is just a long-term research project, but we hope that as we get more users involved in the system, we can truly get a better idea of what is on people's computers so that we can identify malicious software based on the demographics of who is using it versus what it does," said Carey Nachenberg, a senior member of Symantec's Security Research team."We're hoping to get more clarity through the large base of users we have," he said. "By collecting this data, we should be able to get the most comprehensive view of the usage patterns to derive reputation information for everything they use."
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The purpose of this paper is to explain how attackers behave when they attempt to identify and defeat honeypots, and is useful for security professionals to deploy honeypots in a more stealthy manner.
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This paper will cover the challenge of identifying a reliable source of information to populate and maintain accurate configuration information from the distributed application and server environment for use in the CMDB.
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Fixes made for "critical" JavaScript vulnerability in the Firefox browser and the SeaMonkey application suite.
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Delivering the capabilities of traditional EAI products within a light-footprint, standards-based infrastructure supporting incremental integration
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Richard Stiennon, Webroot vice president of threat research, said the increasing number of desktop search tools -- now coming out from Google, Yahoo, MSN and others -- may also be leveraged by attackers.
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Rinbot, the on-again, off-again threat that exploits a pair of long-patched vulnerabilities, may be back. But security researchers differ over how serious a threat it actually is.
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The next big use for iRobot's bots: patrolling international borders.
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The security threats against business-technology systems continue to multiply. Not only do malicious worms and viruses such as Blaster and Bagle continue to wreak havoc, but security pros
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Will the search engine leviathan end the hunt for a commercial hybrid? In Autopia.
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Looks to commercial surveillance tools
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Security researcher demonstrates a way to use cross-site scripting to remotely spam an internal network printer.