PC Tools Survey at Black Hat Reveals "Malware 2.0" Is a Real Concern

Business Wire, August 6, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO -- "Malware 2.0" has been a key focus of discussion at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas -- where more than 2,500 security experts are gathered to identify and dissect security threats from around the world.

"Global security vendors need to smarten up with their detection techniques. Industry experts agree that behavioral technology is the way of the future," said Michael Greene, PC Tools Vice President of Product Strategy.

According to Paul Lauray, Network Analyst for Citigroup: "There are a lot of rogue nations -- such as the former Soviet Union -- attacking us. Malware 2.0 is a good term for the new threats we are facing."

"We are seeing an explosion of malware and their mutating variants," said David Chance, Network Analyst for Mantech. "The malware is getting trickier and trickier."

Amarendra Godbole, Security Researcher for Symantec, said: "We are seeing specific forms of mutations. The malware writers are getting smarter. It is getting harder and harder to detect these threats with standard tools. These threats are getting more dangerous."

According to Rusln Kantor, Software Developer for Alladin, "The main reason for the increase and change in malware is that these cyber-thieves are trying to get your data. It really doesn't matter for the user -- they don't care whether malware mutates -- they are simply targets. These threats are primarily aimed at signature scanners. They overwhelm them."

Erica, a Security Developer, who asked not to be further identified, said she has been witnessing many more sophisticated attacks. "This is been true for the last couple of years, but I am seeing a distinct difference since last year. Malware 2.0 is a great term to define these new attacks."

"The attacks we are seeing are very elusive. It is what my peers are talking about," said Eddie Borrero, Information Security Manager at a Fortune 500 security company. "These malware writers are making it much more difficult to detect their malware. We are finding that it is difficult to keep up with the trending information and the volume of attacks."

PC Tools Vice President for Product Strategy Michael Greene says, "The only way security vendors can combat these new rapidly mutating threats is to use automated solutions. There is no way human analysis can handle these large volumes of malware and get protection to the market in reasonable time."

"The best solutions available include automated, real-time data from the cloud, behavioral scanners and a solid signature-based engine," Greene said.

Editors Note:

PC Tools researchers have recently identified three key trends associated with what has been termed "Malware 2.0":

* Malware variants are now released at immense rates, driving up sample volumes and making it almost impossible for researchers to keep on-top-of updates using manual analysis. These threats are taking advantage of the non-detection sweet spot where they can freely propagate and infect before anti-malware companies can respond.

* New compilers and other techniques are being used to make threats more difficult, if not impossible; to detect with traditional signature based systems. This technique relies on advanced server-side systems to create completely unique threats each time, devoid of the commonalities required for signature detection to be effective.

* "Micro-malware" - thousands of malware variants are in circulation, but are focusing attacks on smaller groups of PCs, making it less likely to attract the attention of security vendors. As a result, malware is spreading in epic proportions and security vendors are being forced to triage the samples.

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