View from the cheap seats

'Our jobs and our day-to-day successes and failures are still as much about people and what they do (and don't do) as they ever were.' Max Morris, independent author, USA.

Hotbar adware dispute settled

Symantec settles adware case.

Updating niggles

Troublesome month for security vendors.

January 2006

The Virus Bulletin prevalence table is compiled monthly from virus reports received by Virus Bulletin; both directly, and from other companies who pass on their statistics.

Proxies for the underworld: I-Worm.Locksky.AS

The Locksky email worm first appeared in October 2005. Its aim is to install proxies on victims' machines, which can then be sold. Ferenc Laszlo Nagy has the details.

IM_a nuisance – W32.Imav.A

Two years after its emergence the Beagle family is still one of the most pervasive families of Internet worms. John Canavan takes a close look at one variant that has made the surprising switch from email to ICQ as its major infection vector.

How can a web filter add proactive security?

Steen Pedersen explains how the perimeter defence layer can be enhanced with the use of a web filter.

Improving proactive detection of packed malware

Dynamic translation is a technique that can be used instead of emulation for decrypting complex malware. Adrian Stepan describes how the technique can also be used to perform generic unpacking.

Changes to the VB test sets

VB's product reviewer Matt Ham describes some changes to the test sets used for VB's comparative reviews.

Solving the metamorphic puzzle

Metamorphic viruses have posed a challenge for the anti-virus industry for quite some time. This article focuses on a number of metamorphic techniques and highlights different methods for detecting them.

Spam Bulletin - March 2006

This month's anti-spam news and Andrej Bratko describes the use of data compression models to fight spam.