funsec mailing list archives
Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero'
From: Gadi Evron <ge () linuxbox org>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:17:17 -0500 (CDT)
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008, Paul Ferguson wrote:
This is about creating new malware as a contest to slip by AV scanners.
Yes, sounds like a very interesting contest for reversing skills. Considering bad guys have that [manipulation] nailed down, I don't see any reason why good guys can't learn and use. Security is about knowing how attacks work, and reversing isn't just about attacks, this is crucial to defense. Quit your whining Ferg, last thing we need is for some bleeding hearts from the AV industry (some of them very close friends of mine) to say reversing is black hat if not done by them. Think they won't? They already bitch about protection software being evil, as naturally it is built just to make their lives harder. I was in that world, and I still very much am deep in the AV world, that does not mean I am willing to accept all these antiquated concepts as written in stone. If I did I wouldn't have broken the anti virus industry's iron fist on being the only ones who can see or study samples. I rather oppose this silliness now. They can call reversers black hats, but I can call them bleeding heart idiots, or more likely money mongering dolts stuck in cultural stagnation. This is not an attack against AV software or AV-ers, it is an attack against the military secrecy culture with no "expiration" date of "publicity". Gadi.
What the does that prove? Nothing, really. If people rely solely on an AV scanner for protection, they are sorely misguided. AV is only a tool. To assume it is anything more than that is disingenuous. Everyone knows that criminals have set up their own private "VirusTotal-like" scanner portals to test whether or not they can slip a new binary down the Botnet C&C pipeline. I call this what it is: "infotainment". It really accomplished nothing more than that. This won't be decided here, or in the court of public opinion, either. When you look at the fact that, in the past week alone, more than ~600,000 websites have compromised to harbor malicious iFrames or JavaScript in this whole process -- to infect unwitting consumers in an ongoing effort to rob them blind -- the problem is much, much larger than trying bypass virus scanners. $.02, - - ferg -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Desktop 9.6.3 (Build 3017) wj8DBQFIEpuuq1pz9mNUZTMRAh9AAJ4iv4Ngl8hJRI/LDu4FAK2EDqUEiwCg7pDd R9oiEylc6lKQTIp5lye0izI= =P34S -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawg(at)netzero.net ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
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Current thread:
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero', (continued)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' B Potter (Apr 25)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Rich Kulawiec (Apr 26)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Joel R. Helgeson (Apr 28)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Toralv_Dirro (Apr 28)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Nick FitzGerald (Apr 28)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Gadi Evron (Apr 28)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Blue Boar (Apr 28)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Nick FitzGerald (Apr 29)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' B Potter (Apr 25)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' 'Rich Kulawiec' (Apr 28)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Gadi Evron (Apr 25)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Gadi Evron (Apr 25)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Charles Miller (Apr 28)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' Nick FitzGerald (Apr 29)
- Re: DefCon 'Race to Zero' der Mouse (Apr 28)