Forwarded from: Dave Close <dave@private> > But now software engineers at Icosystem in Cambridge, Massachusetts, > have developed a program that can predict what is coming next by > "evolving" future hacker and virus attacks based on information from > known ones. Isn't it obvious to anyone besides me that any such tool would be just as useful to malware writers as to good guys? In fact, aren't some of the malware mutations just such minor modifications? But if a malware writer could incorporate such technology in the malware itself, he'd have a self-mutating virus and anti-virus software would be useless. I trust Icosystem is being very careful, but even publicizing the idea can have consequences. And I have no doubt that the code itself will eventually become available to those who might want it. -- Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA +1 714 434 7359 dave@private dhclose@private "No woman in my time will be Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1969 -=- Forwarded from: cjlamb@private I don't know what kind of firewall they use, but I know that our Cisco Velociraptor does more than protect against "known attacks." Is this a case of FUD or this a case of someone not really knowing what the hell they're talking about or just trying to capitalize on ignorance to sell their product? Regards, CJ Lamb http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994588 25 January 04 Novel computer viruses and worms can sweep the world within hours, leaving a trail of devastation, because firewalls and antiviral software work by identifying the telltale signatures of known attacks. They are useless against anything completely new. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomo@private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Feb 03 2004 - 06:45:04 PST