"undetectable" malware threats, VM's and polymorphism

[davidh]

I forgot to save the URL's.

But it appears that malware threats are becoming significantly greater. Microsoft and University of Michigan [?] have developed proof-of-concept malware-in-virtual-machines, for BOTH Windows and Linux that apparently could only be detected by special hardware/firmware. And of course polymorphic viruses/spyware can't be detected by "signatures" because the signatures change randomly every time an infection occurs. :(

David H.

P.S. MS-DOS or OS/2 might not be a bad idea to have on a back-up partition since the popularity of Windows and Linux make them likely targets. Or buy a couple of those $100 MIT diskless computers and just hope that your data on your server or ISP doesn't get trashed when the admins don't keep adequate security on those systems.

[rlohmann]

MS-DOS or OS/2 might not be a bad idea to have on a back-up partition since the popularity of Windows and Linux make them likely targets. Interesting thought. I have the distribution disks for both DOS 7.0 and OS/2 v. 4 ("Merlin"). I also have loads of disk space and a functioning copy of Partition Magic.

Was there a browser for OS/2?

[davidh]

Interesting thought. I have the distribution disks for both DOS 7.0 and OS/2 v. 4 ("Merlin"). I also have loads of disk space and a functioning copy of Partition Magic.

Was there a browser for OS/2? The IBM OS/2 Internet Suite was pretty good back in 1995 but obsolete by 1996. There is a version of Netscape 4.x for OS/2. I don't know if Firefox or Mozilla for LINUX might have been compiled to run under EMX in OS/2 ? At one time there was an effort by Opera to make a browser for OS/2 but I don't know how far it went.

Earlier versions of LYNX text browser were compiled for OS/2 but today I think only DOS and Win32 versions of it are relatively uptodate. I still use DOS lynx to access this forum and gmail once in a great while.

David H.

[ndebord]

I forgot to save the URL's.

But it appears that malware threats are becoming significantly greater. Microsoft and University of Michigan [?] have developed proof-of-concept malware-in-virtual-machines, for BOTH Windows and Linux that apparently could only be detected by special hardware/firmware. And of course polymorphic viruses/spyware can't be detected by "signatures" because the signatures change randomly every time an infection occurs. :(

David H.

P.S. MS-DOS or OS/2 might not be a bad idea to have on a back-up partition since the popularity of Windows and Linux make them likely targets. Or buy a couple of those $100 MIT diskless computers and just hope that your data on your server or ISP doesn't get trashed when the admins don't keep adequate security on those systems.


David,

One of the reasons why I run W98se is because it allows for a boot disc, in my case 2 boot floppies (MSDOS and FreeDOS).

I would say that there are a few steps you can take to protect yourself. First off don't run IE and therby avoid Active X altogether. In my case I run K-Meleon and macros and avoid XUL too. Run a firewall all the time and an anti-virus program with a reputation. And run some kind of spyware program or even multiples of spyware programs to check on stuff.

Final word? Don't ever open up any email you are not absolutely sure is safe. So run an email program that doesn't use HTML unless you say yes to an individual piece of mail. The corollary to that is don't run Outlook or Outlook Express because that is how the malware gets through to infect your computer most of the time.

[davidh]

Final word? Don't ever open up any email you are not absolutely sure is safe. So run an email program that doesn't use HTML unless you say yes to an individual piece of mail. The corollary to that is don't run Outlook or Outlook Express because that is how the malware gets through to infect your computer most of the time. I've been to scared to touch Outlook and OE for years. I hope to use FOX2BOX sometime to convert my Foxmail mailboxes to MBOX files for Pegasus. Pegasus claims to do only rendering of safe parts of html email messages (no scripting or remote images, etc.), so I feel less threatened by it than most other email programs. Or I can use LYNX text only browser to read and write email on google web mail when I am really paranoid.

David H.

[davidh]

Rootkit numbers rocketing up, McAfee says

http://news.com.com/Rootkit+numbers+rocketing+up,+McAfee+says/2100-7349_3-6061878.html

[ndebord]

I forgot to save the URL's.

But it appears that malware threats are becoming significantly greater. Microsoft and University of Michigan [?] have developed proof-of-concept malware-in-virtual-machines, for BOTH Windows and Linux that apparently could only be detected by special hardware/firmware. And of course polymorphic viruses/spyware can't be detected by "signatures" because the signatures change randomly every time an infection occurs. :(

David H.

P.S. MS-DOS or OS/2 might not be a bad idea to have on a back-up partition since the popularity of Windows and Linux make them likely targets. Or buy a couple of those $100 MIT diskless computers and just hope that your data on your server or ISP doesn't get trashed when the admins don't keep adequate security on those systems.

David,

You can always use Freedos, avdisk and F-Prot for DOS on that partition. Problem with all DOS security programs is with long file names. Even LFNDOS
can't handle extremely long names.

[Judy G. Russell]

"We can predict that, in the coming two or three years, the growth of rootkits for the current Windows architecture will reach an annual rate of at least 650 percent," the report stated.Good grief. That's appalling.

[davidh]

http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/tech/story.jsp?floc=FF-AFP-shhitech&idq=/ff/story/7000%2F20060506%2F0115000010.htm&sc=shhitech

David H.

[Judy G. Russell]

70 percent of malicious software aimed at theft: surveyOnly 70 percent???? I'd have thought higher.