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Fight against malware developing into arms race


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Time-delayed attacks are proving problematic, claims Lastline CEO.

Malware is developing at such a rate that an “arms race” has ensued between cyber criminals and those seeking to thwart their activities.

This is according to Lastline, an anti-malware firm that uses the cloud to detect and protect firms from Trojans, viruses and other kinds of online attack.

Jens Andreassen, the company’s CEO, told IT Pro that it's becoming increasingly difficult to stay ahead of those writing malicious code.

"We are able to keep up with them now, because we can see every step of the code as it executes, but we still have to write new rules and keep adjusting [products]," he said.

Malware that is idle for anywhere between a few minutes and days, and which can deploy decoys is particularly difficult to detect, he continued.

Nevertheless, Andreassen claimed that there are products available to spot malware based on suspicious behaviour, rather than final activity.

“If an executable file is carrying out processes that indicate it is looking to see if it is in a sandbox or not, that itself is an indicator that it is malware, and the same with those that idle or carry out low-level background tasks,” Andreassen said.

Whilst the security services have been making inroads into identifying and arresting alleged malware authors and botnet masters using techniques like sinkhole servers, he does not believe we have reached a tipping point in the fight against cybercrime.

“There is a lot of activity going on in this area, but malware is reportedly better funded than any anti-malware activities, and that’s without even considering what seem to be state-sponsored attacks,” Andreassen.

“There has been some progress, but really we have barely scratched the surface,” he concluded.

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