Israeli start-up claims it may be able to stop all viruses

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/hack-this-start-up-claims-it-can-stop-all-viruses-permanently/

By David Shamah
The Times of Israel
February 6, 2014

An Israeli start-up claims it may be able to put an end to the viruses, 
malware, and trojan horses that cost the world economy hundreds of 
billions of dollars a year. Not only does Cyactive say it can stop viruses 
that are already “in the wild,” currently causing damage, but according to 
CEO & Co-Founder, Liran Tancman, it can beat them most of them even before 
they are invented.

The secret? Viruses are overwhelmingly evolutionary, not revolutionary. 
“Much of the code found in even major attacks is reused over and over 
again in new attacks,” Tancman said. “There has actually never been a 
virus that did not draw substantially on malware that was already in 
existence.”

Especially today, when hacking has become such a lucrative worldwide 
business, hackers need to produce. They don’t have time to reinvent the 
wheel; nor do they have to as things stand, said Tancman. “The problem is 
that cyber-security is reactive, not proactive. A company will spend 
hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to secure themselves against 
a major malware variant, fighting off a specific attack.” But getting 
around those defenses is easy for a hacker. “All they have to do is insert 
some changes in their malware code, and they are in the clear. For $150, a 
cybercriminal can hire a hacker to do $25 million of damage, and then do 
it again a few months later, making very minor changes to their malware 
code.”

Tancman, a former head of Cyber-strategy in an elite IDF intelligence unit 
with a decade of experience in Israel’s intelligence corps, has been 
thinking about this phenomenon for a long time -- and has developed what 
he believes can become the solution to all malware and viruses, present 
and future. “If we can develop defenses against the core of the malware, 
the 98% of the code that is just a variant of existing malware, we could 
end virus attacks for good,” Tracman said.

[...]

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