Fighting malware and spam

March issue of VB published

The March issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download.

The March 2007 issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to browse online or download in PDF format.

Just a few of the things this month's issue has in store are:

• Darknet monitoring: 'Monitoring darknet traffic yields great visibility into what threats are present,' says Arbor Networks' Jose Nazario.

• Hidan and dangerous: Peter Ferrie describes a malicious plug-in for one of the most popular tools of the anti-malware trade: the IDA disassembler and debugger.

• Peerbot: catch me if you can: Earlier this year Trojan.Peacomm (a.k.a. the 'Storm trojan') demonstrated that legitimate P2P protocols can be used effectively to coordinate virus networks. Elia Florio and Mircea Ciubotariu explain how.

• Real-world testing of email anti-virus solutions: Testing security products can be a complex task - especially validating the effectiveness of technology against threats that evolve at an extremely rapid rate. Adam O'Donnell considers the current state of anti-virus testing.

• Letter: The strange case of Julie Amero: 'As things currently stand, anyone who has pornographic images appearing on their screen as a result of malware on their PC, or being trapped in a continuous pop-up loop, is at risk of conviction if there are minors in the vicinity.' Alex Shipp, MessageLabs.

• Product review: John Hawes takes an indepth look at AEC's TrustPort Workstation.

• A phish with a sting in the tail: Martin Overton describes an unusual phishing scam in which traditional social engineering phishing techniques are combined with a malware download that renders the victim PC unbootable once the phishing deed has been done.

• Enhancing the efficiency of learning-based spam filters: The effectiveness of content-based spam filters is directly related to the quality of the features used in the filter's classification model. Vipul Sharma and Steve Lewis discuss how retiring features that have become ineffective can improve the filter's performance.

Subscribers click here to access the issue.

If you are not already a subscriber why not take the chance to subscribe now.

01 March 2007

Tags:    del.icio.us   digg this

Quick Links

Poll

virusbtn: RT @emailsecmatters: The typical spam message has sources as diverse as the spam lunch meat: http://ht.ly/2yucd
2 hours ago

virusbtn: Can anyone write a rap about our RAP tests (http://bit.ly/255ySQ) and submit it to the Symantec competition http://bit.ly/bOJg8r
6 hours ago

VB100 certification