AV: Mind the gap

‘Has AV run its course and is it time to move on?’ Chad Loeven, Silicium Security

Flashback cash

Flashback botnet estimated to have generated $10,00 per day.

Religion riskier than pornography

Symantec threat report suggests religious sites more likely to be infected than pornographic sites.

March 2012

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.

evilMule in kernel mode – an analysis of the network functionality of Sirefef

Win32/Sirefef (a.k.a. ZeroAccess) is one of the most prevalent threats in the wild today. Its main component is a kernel-mode driver, which implements a kernel-mode P2P file distribution system to deploy new malware components and upgrade existing ones. Chun Feng describes the design and implementation of this P2P file distribution system.

Like a bat out of hell

A polymorphic batch file appears to be a holy grail to some virus writers, perhaps because of how insanely difficult it is to produce one. In spite (or perhaps because) of the challenges, one virus writer has managed it with BAT/Lymer. Peter Ferrie picks apart the details.

Malware design strategies for circumventing detection and prevention controls – part one

Aditya Sood and Richard Enbody discuss some of the different techniques that are used by present-day malware to circumvent protection mechanisms.

Mobile banking vulnerability: Android repackaging threat

From a security point of view, Android's openness is one of its down sides. Researchers Seolwoo Joo and Changyeon Hwang show how a repackaged mobile banking app can be used to steal users' banking credentials.

VBSpam comparative review March 2012

Spam catch rates dropped significantly in the last VBSpam test, and they did not recover ground this time - and although all (complete) products qualified for VBSpam certification, none of the products in this month's test met the requirements for the higher level VBSpam+ award. Martijn Grooten has the details.

Anti-malware industry events

Must-attend events in the anti-malware industry - dates, locations and further details.