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Have I got a trojan ? shows
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10 Simple Anti-Trojan Rules
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Surfing !
Spyware trends ... what's coming next ?
Christian Mairoll, CEO of Emsisoft who produces a-squared Anti-Malware, and Mamutu behavior blocker, talks with us about the most recent developments in the world of trojan and virus detection and control. We get his opinion on what he thinks we will be having to protect against in the future, and find out what makes the manager of a security software company get out of bed in the morning.
See link from article to a-squared Virus & Spyware Scanner.
The Emsisoft CEO Interview.
Viruses and Spyware on your Mobile Phone?
| We talk to Seth Fogie of Airscanner
Mobile Security about the threats to mobile phones users connecting to the web in the new frontier of internet security. |
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For information on Airscanner Firewall 3.5 visit the Airscanner site now!
Airscanner CEO Interview
Need Technical Assistance ?
Anti-trojan.org does not have a forum to answer your individual inquiries but if you require assistance from an expert on a specific trojan issue or any other computer problem we can point you in the right direction to some of the best Tech Professionals on the internet, who freely give their own time to help the rest of us.You will find links to these internet heroes under Technical Assistance Forums.
Interview with Christian Mairoll of Emsisoft.com
Emsisoft produces a-squared Anti-Malware and Mamutu Behaviour Blocker Anti-Spyware
ATO Hi Christian, being the CEO of a busy Internet Security Company, we appreciate the time you have taken to talk to us today.Christian My
pleasure. PC security knowledge is very important to everyone.
ATO How long have you been involved in internet security?
Christian My
first contact with trojan horses was in 1998. Who doesn't remember the
legendary Back Orifice, Sub7 and Netbus backdoors? Those have got major
attention and started to change the old-school Antivirus business
completely. Using the public sourcecodes, every child became able to
create
a backdoor that can't be detected by any antivirus program.
Christian While
in early years of malware writing the coders' intention was to have
just some fun spying on their friends' computers, today we have to
combat
against a multi million dollar business of malware writers. Every few
years,
a completely new type of Malware has appeared.
From 1999 to 2001 backdoor
trojans have been the most used malware to spy on others. From 2002 to
2003 we
noticed a peak on modem Dialers, little programs that change the
internet
dial-in numbers to high-cost numbers. 2004 was the year of classic
Spyware
and Adware. Many companies created advertising bundlers and people
started
to care about hidden phone home actions. In 2005 Rootkits were the
major
harm that scared people. During the last years, the malware business
became
much more professional. We have seen bot networks with many hundreds of
thousands of hijacked zombie computers that are used to send spam
emails.
ATO You have produced two pieces of software - a-squared and Mamutu. One is a virus and trojan scanner, and the other is a behaviour blocker. Can you tell us a little bit about the difference between the two?
Christian How
can malware be detected in general? Like the real world police, a
typical malware scanner has a set of malware fingerprints that are used
to
identify malicious objects. But that requires the anti-malware vendor
to get
an example of every single malware file to be able to create a
signature
(fingerprint). The major problem of this detection method is, that new
malware can't be detected without having a matching signature.
That's why we created a behavior based malware protection engine,
called
Malware-IDS (intrusion detection system). It monitors in realtime all
running programs for malicious behavior. Once a program does something
suspicious, it is alerted by our guard. As it can not be used to clean
an
infected PC, it is a perfect prevention system with 100% detection rate
in
many public tests.
While Mamutu is a pure behavior blocker, a-squared Anti-Malware comes
with
behavior blocking and a signature based disk scanner to clean infected
computers.
If you already have a reliable signature based protection system, use
Mamutu
as a complementary program. a-squared Anti-Malware replaces anti-virus
and
anti-spyware programs.
Christian Everybody
knows that he or she needs an anti-virus protection software, but
nobody really cares about anti-spyware or anti-trojan. This fact is
interesting when you keep in mind, that today, viruses are
less than 5% of
the total malware we combat. While most security software
vendors came from
the anti-virus side, we have our origins in the
anti-trojan/anti-spyware
sector.
Christian I'd
say both. We have seen lots of phishing bots that are limited e.g. to
German language, but many others are multifunctional. Phishing is no
longer
limited to single banking systems. Some bots are able to handle 30 and
more
different types of banking environments in multiple languages to steal
your
PIN and empty your account.
Backdoors and Bots are usually running hidden. They don't care about
your
used language or your region. Your PC resources and internet bandwidth
are
worth money, no matter where you are.
Christian Use
your brain and don't rely purely on software. As this tip is against my
business, security software can always be only a helping tool and not a
replacement for personal experience and sanity. Take care when surfing
unknown websites, downloading files or entering your personal data
somewhere. Always check the publisher before you enter your credit card
data
on a website.
Christian Sure!
Rogue anti-spyware is a very fast growing danger. In a recent
comparison done by dozleng.com (Calender of Updates) with 8 spyware
scanners, our a-squared scanner performed significantly better than the
others.
Christian Yes.
It does no longer matter where you live as the world is fully
connected. Not only our customers are spread around the world. The
a-squared
team is a group of location independent security enthusiasts living in
Europe, America and Asia.
Christian a-squared
Free is a disk scanner only. We think that everybody must be able
to clean an infected PC without paying money. Most people who are
searching
for a malware scanner are in big trouble with an infection. Our first
intention is to free the web from malware. Our second one is to help
people
prevent their computers from new infections with our behavior blocking
technology.
Christian The
background guard with behavior blocking is missing. Everything else,
scanning and cleaning, is included.
Christian You
mean on holiday? What's that?? ;)
When I feel that I need some more clear thoughts, I'm hiking on the
Austrian
mountains.
Christian They can find out about both our free and the paid version of a-squared from our website at
Emsisoft, or click
on the link below.
Thanks for the interview!
Be fully protected! Paid version of a-squared Anti Malware available here.
October 2008
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Interview with Seth Fogie,
CEO of Airscanner Mobile Security
ATO Thanks for chatting with us today, Seth. You specialise in security products for mobile phones and handheld PDAs and EDAs that connect to the internet. This is not an area many of us would have considered. Can you tell us about some of the dangers that you have come across, and then we can discuss some of the products you offer to combat these.
Seth Sure.
ATO We've heard that you can get a Blue Tooth virus simply by walking past a transmitting device. Is this correct, and if so, what should a user be doing to protect themselves?
Seth This is not quite correct. While it is true that certain older phones are subject to Bluetooth related attacks, these can be used to download data such as contact lists, etc. It is also possible to send messages to a Bluetooth enabled device relatively anonymously.
All that said, it is possible for a Bluetooth enabled device to send another device a file. However, the target user must first click through a warning about accepting files, and then click on another prompt warning about installation of the file. In other words, it takes significant user interaction for Bluetooth to be a reliable attack vector. Unfortunately, enough people are willing to ignore all the warnings and end up infecting themselves.
The only exception to this is a vulnerable Bluetooth driver, which could be exploited to inject code into the target device. While I do know of one driver related bug that affects mobile devices, it only results in a crash. There are however, Bluetooth related vulnerabilities that can lead to remote code execution on laptops/desktops.
ATO There is a lot of confidential information transmitted via these devices, particularly the type of information you would not want to fall into the hands of competitors, therefore it is our presumption that the main threat you need to protect against in this environment is predatory spyware. Is this correct?
Seth I would say that the number one issue that mobile users need to address is the possibility that their phone gets lost or stolen. If the phone is not locked (most aren't), and the data on the phone is not encrypted (most isn't), then the phone's new "owner" can learn a lot about a target. This could include all sort of things, from passwords stored in an Excel file, to email access using stored credentials.
In addition to this, a knowledgable attacker could extract images and videos that the owner took - even if they were deleted.
After this issue is addressed, mobile users also need to understand the dangers of malware on their device. Ironically, illicit malware is not the biggest threat. Instead, it is the numerous consumer grade spyware programs that can be purchased and installed that are the biggest threat to a mobile devices owner.
ATO One of the products you sell is an Airscanner encrypter. Don't most business mobiles already encrypt the information they transmit?
Seth Our Encrypter is designed to secure data on a phone, in case it gets lost or stolen. As for data on the network, some businesses do - but many don't.
ATO For those of us who don't have much experience with mobile malware, what are the key threats and your advice on a basic minimum security package?
Seth It really all comes down to how you use the mobile device and your personality type.
If you are a very casual user, meaning you only visit a few websites, then protection is not very important. Who cares if someone steals your phone?
However, if you are a heavy user and constantly text, email, download files, and would be very upset if all this information became public, then protection is a must.
Chances are that most people fall in between these two extremes.
AV software is important for those users who do a lot of file swapping and emails on a phone. A firewall is good for these users as well, simply because a tight firewall can prevent a malicious attacker from connecting to the device and prevent malware from connecting out.
ATO Is the security for phones normally handled by a company's IT department, or an individual user?
Seth Most of our customers take care of their own device. If a company is larger, then chances are they will have an enterprise level solution incorporating BlackBerrys.
ATO With interconnectivity between mobile devices and desk PCs we guess that security threats picked up by mobile devices could well be a subtle, relatively unguarded way to attack a system. Do you have any experience with this?
Seth How interesting you should ask! I just did a bit a research into this and wrote a nice long article describing one way the connected nature of this can be exploited.
Exploiting Systems through ActiveSync - Informit
Exploiting Systems through ActiveSync - White Wolf Security
In summary, as of ActiveSync 4.0, Microsoft has incorporated the Remote Network Driver Interface Specification (RNDIS) into creation of a syncing session between a Windows Mobile device and its host PC. While the implementation of this technology has numerous advantages, it also creates an exploitable situation by which a host PC can be attacked.
ATO We've heard there's a browser security vulnerability they call "clickjacking". Can you tell us anything about it, and how we can guard against it?
Seth Well, clickjacking is essentially the theft of your click for purposes that you did not intend. This can take several forms, and be used in several ways.
The easiest way to describe this is to imagine that you are playing an online browser based game that requires you to click a lot. An attacker can take your click action and use it to click on an another item that you can't see.
There are several ways that this can already occur, such as using DHTML and JavaScript to move popup boxes around so they are always under your mouse. The latest version of this, AKA clickjacking, requires only DHTML and I suspect some Flash component.
ATO What some of your favorite things in life outside your work ?
Seth Family, kids, racing games, helping people out with their computer issues, and trying to "hack" stuff.
ATO Thanks for talking to us today, Seth. We are sure that any readers who are interested in mobile security will find useful information on your Airscanner Mobile Security site.
October 2008
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