Malware Defense History

by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov.

Copyright: Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov 1994-2013. Unpublished notes. Version 0.80.October, 2013

Contents : Foreword : Ch01 : Ch02 : Ch03  : Ch04 : Ch05 : Ch06 : Ch07 : Ch08 : Ch09 : Ch10 : Ch11 : Ch12 : Ch13

Chapter 3: Architectural Methods of Malware Defense

Introduction to architectural methods of malware defense

Like any defense malware defense should be multi-level. AV/antispyware scanners which are dominant type of spyware protection are just one element of such defense.

There is general law that the more particular organism is adapted to particular environment, the more sensitive it is to even slightest changes of this environment. This law holds for malware as they are highly specilised types of software.

Exploration of this law in historical context was one of the main reasons of writing this book. The key idea here is that as change of environment is often deadly for malware we need preemptlivly intoriduce such changes. This allows to exploit fuinadamental weakness of malware: like any highly specialized organism it is very sensitive to slightest changes in OS or in case they use TCP/IP, to the network configuration.

Also monocultures are more susspetable to deseases. History of crops that attect more powerful parasites trhat eventually became resistant to particular herbisites is replaed in software context with malware and anti-viruese. In a way malware is a result of PC monoculture with Windows as the dominant system. The fact that this is Windows not Linux does not matter -- for any other dominant Os there will be enough reserach to uncover flows that can be exploited in malware.

For any type of malware the malware author makes multiple implisit choices about the enviroment as he wishes to expoit what is some minor lows of this enviroment for propotagtion. That means that a sight change (for example patch) might kill the ability of particular malware to propogate.

But things are more complex that that. Out of infinine number of Windows comfigrations, the malware author needs to orient himself on the most common confiuguration. Any move "left or right" from this "most common" Windows environment means that malware will be unable itether to infect PC of propogate or both.

And the most important are architectural methods, the methods which change architecture of your enterprise or home network and Windows OS in such a way as to make propagation of malware more difficult and make some element of your environment different from the "most common case" on which malware authors orient.

The most important malware propagation vector now is picking up rogue site in Internet search engine, typically Google. Reading and acting upon a rogue email is a distant second. Again those are two are the most popular. Many others exists.

That means that offloading your Web browsing activities to a different platform or "disposable Pc" or different type of CPU provides instant and very effective defense against all existing and still non-written types of Windows malware.

When Linux enthusiasts claim that their beloved OS is less malware friendly then Windows they are only partially wrong ;-).  Currently there are very few malware that target Linux. But this is mostly die to the fact that Windows as a dominant PC OS attacks lion share of malware. Should the situation reverse and Linux became dominant desktop OS with 80% or more market share I am sure there will be plenty malware for Linux.

The fact that Windows will be available on ARM chips in the fall of 2012 means that you can use this methods with relatively minor expense.

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: March 12, 2019