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“Race to Zero” – Old Hat, Not Black Hat
Bournemouth, UK (6th May 2008) – ESET announced today that once again INF/Autorun, a generic detection for malware that uses the Windows Autorun facility to infect machines, has topped the list of global threats in April, accounting for 7.75% of all malware detected. Although relatively unchanged from the previous month, the top ten provides good examples of the complexity and diversity of current malware creation. This is in stark contrast to the simplistic “Race to Zero” competition to be held at the Defcon16 conference in Las Vegas later this year, which ESET believes will prove to be more old hat, than black hat.
Contestants of the competition, announced last week, will be given samples of “viruses or malcode” and will compete to make modifications to them until a selection of antivirus products stops detecting them. The first person or team to get their sample set through undetected wins that round. ESET says that it is unlikely that either the real blackhats who do this for money or the antivirus research community will learn much from the sort of self-important script kiddies who are most likely to be attracted by this exercise.
“It isn’t news to us that you can evade a signature-based scanner by modifying code until the scanner no longer recognises it,” comments David Harley, of ESET's research team. “That’s why ESET spends so much development time on improving and fine-tuning its advanced heuristics. If the Defcon organisers really want to teach us something, maybe they should get their audience to look at new ways of defending against malicious code, not generating even more.”
The organisers claim that they want to show that “Reverse engineering and code analysis is fun.” Maybe, for the first few hundred samples, but modifying malware samples – certainly in such a way as to preserve their malicious functionality, which is a condition of the contest – involves the creation of new variants and ESET says no reputable researcher will condone it.
Top 10 Threats for April 2008
1 INF/Autorun – 7.75%
2 Win32/PSW.OnlineGames – 6.20%
3 Win32/Adware.Virtumonde – 3.58%
4 Win32/Adware.Virtumonde.FP – 2.93%
5 Win32/Adware/SearchAid – 2.64%
6 Win32/IRCBot.AAH – 1.63%
7 Win32/Toolbar.MyWebSearch– 1.61%
8 Win32/Pacex.Gen – 1.11%
9 Win32/TrojanDownloader.SmallJS – 0.99%
10 Win32/TrojanDownloader.Agent.KGV – 0.97%
END
About ThreatSense.Net
ThreatSense.Net includes data about all types of threats seen attacking user systems. This (anonymised) statistical information is collected from those users of ESET security software who choose to enable the reporting service in the product and gives a comprehensive view of the behaviour and spread of malware in the real world. Data is currently collected from more than 10 million systems.
About ESET
ESET develops software solutions that deliver comprehensive protection against evolving computer security threats. ESET pioneered and continues to lead the industry in proactive threat detection. ESET NOD32 Antivirus, its flagship product, consistently achieves the highest accolades in all types of comparative testing and is the foundational product that extends the ESET product line to include ESET Smart Security. Both products have an extremely efficient code base that eliminates the unnecessary large size found in some solutions. This means faster scanning that doesn’t slow down computers or networks.
Sold in more than 110 countries, ESET has worldwide production headquarters in Bratislava, SK and worldwide distribution headquarters in San Diego, U.S. ESET also has offices in UK, Argentina and Czech Republic and is globally represented by an extensive partner network. For more information, visit www.eset.co.uk or call 0845 838 0832.
Media Contact:
Sara Claridge
Marylebone Media Relations
(view email address below)
+44 (0) 20 8133 5572
+44 (0) 7968 626838 (mobile)
www.marylebone.co.uk
Contact Name: Sara Claridge
Role: Director
Company: Marylebone Media Relations
Contact Email: click to reveal e-mail
Contact Phone: 02081335572
Company Website: http://www.marylebone.co.uk
Contestants of the competition, announced last week, will be given samples of “viruses or malcode” and will compete to make modifications to them until a selection of antivirus products stops detecting them. The first person or team to get their sample set through undetected wins that round. ESET says that it is unlikely that either the real blackhats who do this for money or the antivirus research community will learn much from the sort of self-important script kiddies who are most likely to be attracted by this exercise.
“It isn’t news to us that you can evade a signature-based scanner by modifying code until the scanner no longer recognises it,” comments David Harley, of ESET's research team. “That’s why ESET spends so much development time on improving and fine-tuning its advanced heuristics. If the Defcon organisers really want to teach us something, maybe they should get their audience to look at new ways of defending against malicious code, not generating even more.”
The organisers claim that they want to show that “Reverse engineering and code analysis is fun.” Maybe, for the first few hundred samples, but modifying malware samples – certainly in such a way as to preserve their malicious functionality, which is a condition of the contest – involves the creation of new variants and ESET says no reputable researcher will condone it.
Top 10 Threats for April 2008
1 INF/Autorun – 7.75%
2 Win32/PSW.OnlineGames – 6.20%
3 Win32/Adware.Virtumonde – 3.58%
4 Win32/Adware.Virtumonde.FP – 2.93%
5 Win32/Adware/SearchAid – 2.64%
6 Win32/IRCBot.AAH – 1.63%
7 Win32/Toolbar.MyWebSearch– 1.61%
8 Win32/Pacex.Gen – 1.11%
9 Win32/TrojanDownloader.SmallJS – 0.99%
10 Win32/TrojanDownloader.Agent.KGV – 0.97%
END
About ThreatSense.Net
ThreatSense.Net includes data about all types of threats seen attacking user systems. This (anonymised) statistical information is collected from those users of ESET security software who choose to enable the reporting service in the product and gives a comprehensive view of the behaviour and spread of malware in the real world. Data is currently collected from more than 10 million systems.
About ESET
ESET develops software solutions that deliver comprehensive protection against evolving computer security threats. ESET pioneered and continues to lead the industry in proactive threat detection. ESET NOD32 Antivirus, its flagship product, consistently achieves the highest accolades in all types of comparative testing and is the foundational product that extends the ESET product line to include ESET Smart Security. Both products have an extremely efficient code base that eliminates the unnecessary large size found in some solutions. This means faster scanning that doesn’t slow down computers or networks.
Sold in more than 110 countries, ESET has worldwide production headquarters in Bratislava, SK and worldwide distribution headquarters in San Diego, U.S. ESET also has offices in UK, Argentina and Czech Republic and is globally represented by an extensive partner network. For more information, visit www.eset.co.uk or call 0845 838 0832.
Media Contact:
Sara Claridge
Marylebone Media Relations
(view email address below)
+44 (0) 20 8133 5572
+44 (0) 7968 626838 (mobile)
www.marylebone.co.uk
Contact Name: Sara Claridge
Role: Director
Company: Marylebone Media Relations
Contact Email: click to reveal e-mail
Contact Phone: 02081335572
Company Website: http://www.marylebone.co.uk
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