Comments on: The future of malware: Trojan horses

Targeted attacks used for industrial espionage have become the nightmare scenario for big companies, researchers say.

[markdoiron]

Not to Brag ...

Not to brag, but I called this. Back when Intel was offering a serial number embedded into each pentium chip, I said right here on c/Net that was going to be the biggest security threat ever for the very reasons explained in this article. I even suggested that protecting serial numbers would be necessary to prevent targetted attacks, which would negate the whole purpose of the serial numbers. Hah. At least I was correct one time! ;-)

mark d.

[cubicleslave1]

Could you please explain?

According to the article, the reason for the success of these attacks is that targeted attacks slip past virus scanners because they are not included in the scanners' signature files. And they are not included in these files because they have attacked too few people to be noticed. What does that have to do with processor serial numbers? Seems to me that the serial numbers are a completely separate issue. Having a processor with a serial number makes you no more or less vulnerable to the targeted trojan.

[GrandpaN1947]

I worry more about

I'm more concerned that the top leaders of our major corporations are spying on me, planning attacks against me, and creating trojans that will ruin my life.

Could someone please create a trojan that would rid us of bad CEO's.

[Leria]

Well, maybe the trojans....

Are being made by major corporations. That is a possibility that no one wants to raise, that the trojan horses are being made by people connected with the antivirus and anti-spyware companies.

That is a possibility that I think might be at least possible, though not plausible.

[maxwis]

If They Didn't Drink The Microsoft Kool Aid

Companies could eliminate this spyware threat by running Unix based thin clients on the desktop, uing products like Open Office, and disallowing document macros. Desktop computers shouldn't have to run any security software at all, that should run on a central server. The article doesn't even address what happens if the antivirus/spyware software crashes and stops running, or is disabled accidentally or intentionally.

We didn't have these security problems when companies ran IBM 3270 or Vax terminal sessions. The problem came about when an inherently insecure, stand-alone single user operating system became the corporate desktop standard. Now we are stuck with the consequences of that decision. You can try to put band-aid on top of band-aid over the problem but you will still fail.

[imacpwr]

Re: Microsoft Kool Aid

We have the situation today because corporate managers who
controlled the purse strings wanted the same thing that they were
using at home with the family. Unix, in thier eyes, was a system for
geeks which they simply didn't understand and sadly enough,
weren't going to purchase..