Norton's "Canary" technology creates "vulnerability signatures"
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Blog: Symantec technology creates new protection for Internet Explorer users.
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Browser flaw may leave you vulnerable to phishing attacks.
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Attackers can trick browsers into releasing password information.
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Security researchers have uncovered "critical" security flaws in a version of the Linux kernel used by a large number of popular distributions.
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The Web console -- to be made available specifically to corporate and enterprise licensees of Norton AntiVirus software -- will allow administrators to distribute virus definitions and product updates on demand.
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Blog: Low ransom request and a self-termination date on the code suggest this is a test attack.
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Ziff Davis - Anti-Santy-Worm V4 attempts to patch vulnerable Web forum software but might cause denial-of-service attacks.
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A toolkit designed to exploit a recently-disclosed Microsoft JPEG vulnerability has been released onto the net. The toolkit (screen shot from AV firm F-Secure here) makes it trivially easy for maliciously-minded
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GNUCitizen is describing an apparent vulnerability that could use VoIP to trick people into revealing personal data.
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Unpatched Windows machines are vulnerable to latest adware attack
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Floor by flaw The latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows and (in the case of Firefox) Unix systems are vulnerable to attacks that could reveal the contents of sensitive files residing on a victim's hard drives.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Symantec launched new editions of its consumer Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security (NIS) software Tuesday, adding new browser defenses for some users in both packages and wrapping features from its new identity initiative into the suite. The 2008 versions boast several new features and enhancements, including something that Symantec is calling Browser Defender, which is behavioral-based technology that inspects all ActiveX, JavaScript, and VBScript code executing within Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. "It provides zero-day protection in the browser," said Ed Kim, the director of product management for Symantec's consumer products group, "but not just IE. It protects against attacks on any third-party application run within the browser, like QuickTime or Adobe [Reader]. Anything that has an ActiveX component." Browser Defender, which is integrated within both Norton AntiVirus 2008 and NIS 2008, is also able to see through attack code obfuscation techniques, claimed Kim. "Other security [applications] rely on a few simple de-obfuscation routines or look at the script itself. But we will wait until the threat uncloaks, then look at the [API] call before that call is made." Out of the gate, Browser Defender only protects users running Internet Explorer. Firefox users will have to wait. "We went with IE, given that it's the most prevalent browser," Kim said. Firefox support is in what Kim dubbed "the planning stage" with no timetable yet set. Other new features in NIS include Norton Identity Safe, the new name of the tool that Symantec has called Norton Identity Client since its January debut at the Demo 07 conference. Part of the company's long-range plan to move into identity protection, the addition to NIS is a first-generation effort to offer a tool that lets users control what information is transmitted to Web sites and fills in forms and password fields automatically. Both products are available immediately for download from Symantec's online store, and they will be available through retailers shortly, Kim said. Prices for the security software have not changed from last year: Norton AntiVirus 2008 sells for US$39.99, while NIS 2008 costs $69.99 for a three-PC license. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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TechWeb - A new proof-of-concept code is circulating for a Firefox vulnerability that was fixed in Mozilla's security update that was released last week.
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Symantec's identity-protection software is designed to make Web surfing safer.
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During a weeklong period in mid-November, security experts with Symantec observed roughly 65,000 new applications being downloaded onto the computers of customers participating in a new research project -- based on their analysis of the software, as many as 60 percent of the programs were malicious.The involved timeframe represented a relative high point for the percentage of unknown applications being downloaded by Symantec's project participants, and the basis for the company's assessment of the programs as malicious was predicated largely on the programs' use of obfuscated naming conventions.However, the numbers point to a disturbing trend that the researchers say may force the security company to change its fundamental approach for warding off threats -- that being that the number of malicious applications coming to life on the Web appears to be outpacing the volume of legitimate programs.With malware authors using fuzzing tools to find holes in popular applications such as Web browsers, and testing their work against commercial anti-virus (AV) products to ensure that the attacks evade detection by the tools, leading researchers at Symantec admit that defending against threats using traditional methods has become something of a losing battle."The reality is that most new malware is going undetected by commercial security products, and not just Symantec's, but we have to recognize that like all other AV products we are probably missing a sizeable amount of this malware," said Carey Nachenberg, a member of the company's Security Response team who also wears the title of Symantec Fellow."Eventually we write [virus] signatures and get those out to customers, but it appears that a sizeable proportion of this malware never gets detected," he said. "Instead of distributing one copy of each malware program to thousands of people, they're producing a copy for as few as two or three people and then re-writing it; so, if we get one version we can remove it from a few computers, but not all the variants. The problem with this is that there is the potential over time for almost everyone to have some form of infestation, maybe in only a few years time."The trend toward malware authors using small runs of attacks to evade detection and hook as many victims as possible, known as server-side polymorphism, is forcing Symantec to reassess how it goes about protecting its users.Since it can't hope to keep up with every flavor of threat that is being created, traditional countermeasures such as the use of malware signatures or behavioral heuristics will need to be augmented with new tactics, Nachenberg said.One such alternative is the use of the same distributed data collection capabilities that Symantec is using to track the proliferation of malware. By creating a system of file and Web site reputation by studying applications usage patterns among its customers, the researcher said, Symantec hopes to use a community approach to help people determine which programs they decide to use, or avoid.Much as many people turn to the reviews section on Amazon.com or the buyer feedback system on eBay to get a real-world take on products before they decide to buy, Nachenberg contends that by watching how people are using various applications the security vendor can use a process of elimination for weeding out malware from legitimate software.If only a few people among the millions of Symantec customers who could contribute usage data to such a program were utilizing some application in question, it would be prudent to recommend that people avoid the program until its nature has been better determined, he said.Using opt-out tools that provide anonymous feedback on applications that were built into Symantec's existing Norton AntiVirus and Internet Security 2008 products, the company is already gathering the type of data necessary to create such a system of recommendation."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," Nachenberg said. "We're hoping to get more clarity through the large base of users we have; 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."Faced with questions over potential privacy issues driven by Symantec's ability to watch just who is using what applications and how, the researcher reiterated that users must be made aware of the data collection, allowed to opt-out, and guaranteed that all the information aggregation is done in an anonymous fashion.By offering users the ability to decide whether or not to use an application based on demographics, versus simply blocking programs based on its own observations, the company will also give people more freedom to determine what tools they feel are appropriate to use, he said."If we know that only five people are using a program, given the tens of millions of users we ultimately hope to have in the system, we can be totally objective and recommend that people wait until it is scrutinized further before using it," the researcher said. "We will need to have some manual process for white-listing programs as well, but we think that using this approach we can deliver a reasonable amount of quality with a low false positive rate."If the volume of new malware strains arriving on the Web continues to outpace the proliferation of legitimate programs, Nachenberg said that AV vendors including Symantec may need to move to a white-listing approach in general, and focus more attention on identifying good applications instead of trying to chase down all the bad."If there is less software to analyze that is good, it makes more sense to spend our time scanning for good programs and simply telling our users to avoid everything else," he said. "We're considering models where we can produce the world's largest up-to-date white list of software, but it's not something we can put together in a year; maybe in two-to-three years time."
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New software addresses a vulnerability that allowed previous versions to crash and execute arbitrary code.
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Botnet surprise A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe's Acrobat and Reader software which affects Internet Explorer users.â¦