Feature Archive
Samples of our feature writing
Battle of the botnets
There is a continuous arms race between botnet operators and the whitehats – researchers, anti-malware companies and law enforcement organisations. The most visible manifestation of this conflict is the malware itself but there is a less obvious struggle going on for control of the infrastructure that supports the criminal activities of botnet operators. And as with malware, the way that botnet operators build and manage their infrastructures has become more sophisticated over the past few years.
The perils of sharing
Filesharing technologies, using Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, are shaping up to be one of the major threats of the coming year. They’re being exploited to spread and control malware and steal data. And attempts to limit or eliminate them could just drive the problem underground.
Fighting Forensics
Since crime began, the bad guys have tried to cover their tracks. For every advance in forensics and criminal detection, there has been a countermeasure. When fingerprinting was invented, burglars started wearing gloves. When hackers gain root on a remote system, they take care to delete log files to mask what they’ve done. And as IT forensics methods have improved, so have the anti-forensics techniques designed to defeat them.
A matter of trust
Code signing would seem to provide a means by which we can verify and trust software. Yet it is currently both limited and vulnerable. However, there are ways to improve it.
The promise of whitelisting
Application whitelisting promises greater security against malware through its 'default deny' concept. But the lack of standards and the complexities of IT environments means the benefits are not easily realised.
Anti-Social Networking
Social networking sites have created a security nightmare of user-supplied content, open APIs and heavy use of client-side code.
