Interesting...

sleepygamer213 · Sep 5, 2005

By my check, i havent had a Windows update since Aug 11, 05! and there have been none availible to me!!! It seems as if microsoft doesnt bother supporting us at the moment, but they would rather try to get their stupid WGA fixed!!!

sleepygamer213 · Sep 5, 2005

usually i got them every few days...

DavidGP · Sep 5, 2005

sleepygamer213 said:

usually i got them every few days...
Click to expand...

you must have been priveliged as I like Star only get updates every month or so, wouldnt be suprised if their are a few soon for you to download.

sleepygamer213 · Sep 5, 2005

Its interesting though, considering the virus wars going on right now.

The future of viruses might lie in the hands of someone like BlueOwl, a 16-year-old in the Netherlands who started writing viruses when he was 14. BlueOwl isn't interested in destroying your hard drive; he just likes to experiment. A member of the Ready Rangers Liberation Front, he has written a Web site infector, a couple of genetic mass mailers, some polymorphic viruses, and a genetic polymorphic virus—some of which he posted, none of which he spread. In an instant message he writes:

I do it for the pleasure of creating something, seeing that it works, and making something that could really survive, spread, and hold its own in the wild. A virus is something that lives. In real life you can't make a kind of animal. You can in the computer. It's like playing God.

The virus wars continue to escalate, with output poised to exceed even that of 2003—Year of the Worm—if we can judge by the increasing frequency and complexity of attacks so far this year. In March, 2 percent of all traffic the security firm MessageLabs received contained viruses. "We're still losing the battle," says META Group program manager Peter Firstbrook. "The last two years have been the worst for virus outbreaks, and this year's shaping up to be even worse."

The future direction of the virus wars, however, is something of an unknown, because it depends on so many variables, including the shifting motivations for virus writing. BlueOwl classifies virus writers into four groups: creators, who write for the thrill (he places himself in this category); students, who write for research purposes; script kiddies, writing to impress, "who think they are cool [but] their viruses suck"; and cyberterrorists, who spread viruses for the joy of not creation but destruction.

The creators, BlueOwl says, are a dying breed, quitting the virus scene out of boredom and not bringing new creators in. The students are also fading as schools get stricter about virus handling. By contrast, the number of script kiddies is growing, because "a lot of programming languages have become incredibly easy—with just a few lines these kids can make viruses that spread incredibly well, for example ILOVEYOU [the e-mail worm]. There is no real need to spend hours and hours learning how to write viruses anymore." Cyberterrorists, BlueOwl says, are steadily on the rise because of poorly protected networks and the low risk of getting caught.

Steven Sundermeier, vice president of products and services at security firm Central Command, adds another motivation to the mix: money. Because worm writers can install key loggers through backdoor portals to track passwords, credit card numbers, and other confidential information, the typical kid messing around with digital graffiti is giving way to the "professional" writing for profit.

Throw in some writer rivalry and the landscape gets even more complex. Since February, the Bagle and Netsky authors have been engaged in an ongoing, sometimes daily cyberbattle, taking turns using huge pools of zombie machines—adapting exploits left by others like MyDoom and SoBig—to spread new variants with code containing direct taunts. While they duke it out with messages like "Bagle is a [expletive deleted] guy, he opens a backdoor, and he makes a lot of money" (Netsky.R) and "Hey, Netsky, [expletive deleted] off you bitch!" (Bagle.K), with other authors occasionally weighing in, each new variant requires security companies to develop new emergency updates.

Central Command's Sundermeier comments, "Typically we don't see this tit-for-tat type of writing, because the motivation on the part of writers is usually a pride thing: You get a code out and start a career using those skills." The taunts aren't common between virus groups. In fact, according to Sundermeier, the writers may be working in collaboration, and the taunts may just be a distraction. "We're seeing a cat-and-mouse game, but all these author groups are keeping a watchful eye on the antivirus groups as well."

The virus writers are constantly trying to one-up each other by evolving their code with each new variant, but they're also trying to one-up the antivirus industry. Take Sundermeier's example of a recent back-and-forth: In the past, you might have found viruses on attachments boasting of nude celebrities, so businesses filtered executable extensions at the gateway. The virus authors then started zipping up their attachments.

In response, security firms had their scanning engines scan archives to block the ZIP files. Only days later, the authors fired back with password-protected ZIP files, which could bypass antivirus screening, as the software couldn't decrypt and take a guess at a password. As a result, Central Command learned to parse an e-mail message for the password and store it in memory so they could decrypt and virus-scan it. A week went by, says Sundermeier, and the authors "stopped including the password as a text file. It was a bitmap file, which completely screwed up our game plan."

Other current virus-writing trends include self-propagating codes with tie-ins to spammers, networks of bots created by members of organized crime to use in extortion, and codes shared with other writers, leading to blended threats. When sharing codes, writers don't even need to be sophisticated programmers to wreak havoc, as long as they can weave together existing attacks from code available through community resources. Gene Spafford, a Purdue University computer science professor and security expert, explains:

It's a "pay up or we'll disable your system" kind of thing. That's a very disturbing trend. Prior to a couple years ago, viruses were being written by loners, the majority of whom didn't intend for them to have wide-scale malicious impact. Perhaps some of those same authors are now doing it professionally and may be working in teams.
Click to expand...

Source : PC Magazine

It is kind of funny though, how some virus "gangs" are ridding your pc of virii from other virus "gangs".

Anon-068c403e2d · Sep 10, 2005

Take a look at all the vulneribilies that have yet to be patched http://eeye.com/html/research/upcoming/index.html
Note that 9 microsoft vulneribilities have been acknowledged by microsoft.

btw.I trust eeye digital security and have tried their product blink.

Log in or Sign up

Interesting...

sleepygamer213 First Sergeant

sleepygamer213 First Sergeant

DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

sleepygamer213 First Sergeant

Anon-068c403e2d Anonymized