Combating Malware and Advanced Persistent Threats

In the past decade, the security industry has seen a constant rise in the volume of malware and attacks associated with them www.mcafee/activate. Malware are www.mcafee.com/activate product key constantly evolving to www.mcafee.com/activate download become more  mcafee.com/activate product key complex and sophisticated. For example,

• Unique malware samples broke the 75 million mark in 2011 – Network World
• 500 malware networks available to launch www.mcafee/activate attacks – InformationWeek

This blog discusses the changing malware threat landscape, challenges faced by intrusion-prevention systems, and www.mcafee.com/activate limitations with traditional signature-based www.mcafee/activate detection. We also provide the www.mcafee.com/activate product key vision of McAfee Labs www.mcafee.com/activate download regarding effective mcafee.com/activate product key solutions to combat such advanced threats.

 Changes to the Threat Landscape

In the last decade we have seen exponential growth in the number of Internet users worldwide. This expanding www.mcafee.com/activate product key base provides a lucrative opportunity to criminal organizations to carry out illicit activities. Compared www.mcafee.com/activate download with earlier malware www.mcafee/activate that primarily created nuisance attacks, today’s malware are much more focused on both their victims and goals. Today’s attacks are a major concern for enterprises and organizations. Not only do they risk the loss of intellectual property or www.mcafee.com/activate data, but any disruption mcafee.com/activate product key to business continuity can also severely hamper an organization’s productivity and reputation. Protecting networks with a wide variety of Internet-connected devices—desktops, laptops, smart phones, etc.—has become even more of a challenge.

Botnets are the most common form of malware used by cybercriminals to attack enterprises and government www.mcafee.com/activate product key organizations worldwide www.mcafee/activate. Botnets, networks of www.mcafee.com/activate download compromised “robot” machines (also known as zombies) under mcafee.com/activate product key the control of a single botmaster, carry out malicious activities such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on servers, steal confidential www.mcafee.com/activate information, install malicious code, and send spam emails. Recent examples are Operation Aurora, ShadyRAT, and DDoS attacks on payment websites in support of WikiLeaks.

Advanced persistent threats, on the other hand, focus on specific targets, such as government organizations, with motives www.mcafee.com/activate ranging from www.mcafee.com/activate download espionage to disrupting a nation’s core networks, including nuclear, power, and financial infrastructure www.mcafee/activate. Due to the discrete  mcafee.com/activate product key nature of the attacks, these can remain undetected for a long time. Such attacks are also much more complex and  www.mcafee.com/activate product key sophisticated compared with other malware.  For example, Stuxnet targeted Iranian nuclear facilities and Flame targeted cyberespionage in Middle Eastern countries.

 Challenges

Looking at the significance of intellectual property and national secrets as well as the vast potential of monetary rewards gained through these advanced attacks and threats, more and more cybercriminals—often well funded by mcafee.com/activate product key criminal organizations—are attracted to develop malware. Their authors implement various techniques to www.mcafee/activate make the malware and associated www.mcafee.com/activate download communication channels stealthier to avoid detection by security products on host systems and on the network. For example, encrypting communications between host and control server, using www.mcafee.com/activate decentralized network architecture to stay www.mcafee.com/activate product key undetected and resilient, using domain and IP flux techniques to hide control servers, and obfuscating malicious payloads are some of the techniques widely used by malware these days.

• It is reactive: To provide coverage, researchers www.mcafee.com/activate product key need to monitor and analyze network traffic, and reverse-engineer the attack to provide accurate www.mcafee/activate detection coverage
• It is static: Malicious network patterns observed in previous attacks can change frequently, thus making the mcafee.com/activate product key www.mcafee.com/activate download existing signatures ineffective to detect new  www.mcafee.com/activate product key variants of old threats
• It cannot react to unknown www.mcafee.com/activate (such as zero-day) attacks
• The scope of detection is limited to a single network session and cannot  www.mcafee.com/activate download correlate events across multiple network sessions