Thursday, September 4, 2008
Hacking contests inviting teams to test antivirus products to their limits have been hailed as a force for good for the industry.
Nick Harbour, who was part of the winning team at a high profile hacking contest held at this year's DefCon convention, said that the challenges help the developers of antivirus protection make their software more secure.
He told the Herald Dispatch: "The contests benefit the industry by proving things that we already know, like this one proved that signature-based virus detection is too easily bypassed through modification."
Along with his team, the "chicagostreetsweepers," Harbour was able to bypass antivirus filters more using ten different modified viruses, urging some commentators to report that a new approach to virus detection was needed.
Other high-profile debates brought up by the DefCon conference related to whether details of viruses and other exploits should be fully disclosed after a court banned a team of network security researchers from highlighting flaws in a Boston public transport ticketing system.
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