Some new anti-virus products falling down on behavioral detection
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
With the proliferation of polymorphic malware - which can reconfigure itself in a number of ways to escape signature-based detection - new approaches to virus scanning are critically important. Unfortunately, some commercial virus scanners are still without effective behavioral detection.
Behavioral detection, instead of simply searching for known malware signatures in files and processes, monitors various PC systems for activity consistent with malicious attack, like unauthorized transmission of data or keylogging. The Washington Post reports that one recently released anti-virus detects 99.3 percent of known malware but just 69.2 percent of malware for which there is no known signature.
Heuristic scanning, another next-generation anti-malware technology, is also not up to the task of fully protecting vulnerable computers from the hazards of the internet, though it too shows promise for the future.
Malware is rapidly growing in sophistication and organization, according to experts, and the computer security industry is being forced to play a desperate game of catch-up with the cyber criminals. Numerous high-profile attacks have been launched to coincide with major news events, using their popularity to infect unsuspecting PCs.
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