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[News] [Rival] Fight Against Windows Malware a Lost Cause

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Cybercriminals reinvent methods of malicious attacks

,----[ Quote ]
| Cybercriminals are not only leveraging new technologies to propagate 
| cybercrime, but are also reinventing forms of social engineering to cleverly 
| ensnare both consumers and businesses, according to the "Trend Micro Threat 
| Roundup and Forecast 1H 2008" report. As a result, the last six months saw an 
| upswing in Web threats, but steady decreases in adware and spyware that are 
| generated by outdated technical methods and can no longer compete with 
| high-level security solutions.      
`----

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=6292

More 'fun':

Adware Company Refines Opt-out, Notification Technology

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| With access to an ISP's (Internet service provider's) network, NebuAd's 
| system monitors Internet browsing in order to deliver targeted advertisements 
| related to search queries and Web sites a person has viewed.  
| 
| NebuAd said it has developed a "direct online notification system" that would 
| give consumers periodic reminders -- which could be used in addition to 
| regular mail and e-mail -- that they are enrolled in the ad system.  
`----

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148058/adware_company_refines_optout_notification_technology.html
http://tinyurl.com/5jwcjb


Recent:

Trend Micro's CEO says 'AV industry sucks'

,----[ Quote ]
| Trend Micro’s CEO threw down the gauntlet to her competitors last week, 
| proclaiming that hackers are ahead of the game and that the anti-virus 
| industry “sucks”.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| Changes in the malware landscape have led to the creation of multiple 
| variants of different malware strains and targeted attacks. Traditional top 
| down command structures for antivirus distribution are struggling to cope. 
| Trend Micro had little choice but to invest in the new technology. However 
| Chen, who has five patents to her name, admitted that investors nervously 
| questioned her risky decision.     
`----

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/06/22/trend_micro_eva_chen/


Schneier: Lots of Security Software Is 'snake Oil'

,----[ Quote ]
| IDG News Service: So what do you think is the biggest threat right now?
| 
| Schneier: Crime.
| 
| IDG News Service: So how do you fix it? It's expensive to investigate, it's 
| cross-jurisdictional. 
| 
| Schneier: It might not be fixable. A lot of [the solution] is going to be 
| making the things that criminals are going after harder to get. You're not 
| going to stop the criminals.   
`----

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144938/schneier_lots_of_security_software_is_snake_oil.html


Malware still malingering for up-to-date anti-virus users

,----[ Quote ]
| Having anti-virus software and keeping it up to date is no longer enough to 
| keep from geting infected by malware. 
`----

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/panda_infected_or_not/


The rise of the Malware Mafia

,----[ Quote ]
| Organized group's embrace of cyber crime has been made possible by the 
| availability of highly specialized malware, which has lowered the barriers to 
| entry. As a result, Alperovitch said, "The profile of arrested criminals is 
| changing from tech savvy teens to traditional criminals with mile-long rap 
| sheets for drugs and propagating fake checks."    
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/organized_crime_embraces_net/


The Dirty Secret Behind 1,000,000 Viruses

,----[ Quote ]
| But there's something missing in this paragraph – and, indeed, in the whole 
| story: it's the word “Windows”. This is the dirty secret behind viruses: they 
| are overwhelmingly found on Windows systems. The huge, global cost of viruses 
| is just one of the hidden extra fees that we all, collectively, must pay when 
| others use Microsoft Windows. Pity Microsoft doesn't use some of its 
| extensive cash holdings to compensate victims of its poor coding.     
| 
| Now, of course, if all the world used GNU/Linux, that wouldn't mean that 
| viruses would cease to exist: the focus of malware would shift, and viruses 
| would become more common for that system too. But you can bet they'd be far 
| harder to write, and that there would be far less than a million.    
`----

http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=685


China Faced With Severe Botnet Problem

,----[ Quote ]
| China faces a serious threat from botnets, networks of computers infected 
| with software that allows them to be controlled remotely for 
| denial-of-service attacks and to send spam, according to a report issued by 
| China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CNCERT).   
`----

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144931/china_faced_with_severe_botnet_problem.html


Microsoft Data Show Web Attacks Taking off

,----[ Quote ]
| The company saw the number of Trojan downloader programs it removed from 
| Windows machines jump by 300 percent, according to Jimmy Kuo, principal 
| architect with Microsoft's Malware Protection Center.   
`----

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144928/microsoft_data_show_web_attacks_taking_off.html


Bots rule in cyberspace

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| USA TODAY REPORTS that on an average day, 40 per cent of the 800 million 
| computers connected to the Internet are bots used to send out spam, viruses 
| and to mine for sensitive personal data.  
`----

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/17/bots-rule-cyberspace
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2008-03-16-computer-botnets_N.htm


Related:

Online banking fraud 'up 8,000%'

,----[ Quote ]
| The UK has seen an 8,000% increase in fake internet banking scams
| in the past two years, the government's financial watchdog has warned.
|
| The Financial Services Authority (FSA) told peers it was "very concerned" 
| about the growth in "phishing".
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6177555.stm


Trend, Sophos and McAfee flunk Vista SP1 anti-virus tests

,----[ Quote ]
| Top tier anti-virus vendors including McAfee, Trend Micro, and Sophos all 
| failed to secure Windows Vista SP1 in recent independent tests. 
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/03/vista_sp1_av_tests/


Does antivirus have a future?

,----[ Quote
| Peter Gutmann, a researcher at the University of Auckland who presented the 
| results of a study of the commercial market for malware at August's Defcon, 
| estimates that a good virus programmer can make as much as $200,000 a year 
| (here, a 660KB PDF). Alan Cox, an open-source security researcher, points out 
| some additional possibilities. One is malware designed to sit under today's 
| virtual machines. A proof-of-concept paper proposing such an attack, called 
| Subvirt (PDF), appeared last year, written by three researchers from 
| Microsoft and two from the University of Michigan. A presentation at last 
| year's Black Hat security conference from Joanna Rutkowska, a researcher at 
| Coseinc, a Singapore-based security company, covered a much leaner attack she 
| called Blue Pill, which targets the virtualisation built into Windows Vista 
| and into current processors from both AMD and Intel.           
`----

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/20/guardianweeklytechnologysection.spam


Is an antivirus gap looming?

,----[ Quote ]
| The failure of antivirus companies to adapt to the dramatic malware 
| appearance rates in 2007 tells us there's time for a change and there's room  
| for a new class of tools. "AV is dead" is the battle cry of a new industry 
| analyst report. Antivirus companies may not be going the way of the dodo, but 
| to many customers, the concept of antivirus as the last line of defense has 
| been thrown out the window. It's time for a better approach, one that can 
| keep up and really defend networks.     
`----

http://news.com.com/2010-7348_3-6195322.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news


Predicting the demise of antivirus apps

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| "It's the beginning of the end for antivirus," says Robin Bloor, partner
| at consulting firm Hurwitz & Associates, who adds he began his
| "antivirus is dead" campaign a year ago and feels even more strongly
| about it today. "I'm going to keep beating this drum. The approach
| antivirus vendors take is completely wrong. The criminals working to
| release these viruses against computer users are testing against
| antivirus software. They know what works and how to create variants."
`----

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/mgmt/0047A206FF40A92ECC2572C3000FD867
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