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Thwarting New JavaScript Malware Obfuscation

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Malware writers have been obfuscating their JavaScript exploit code for a long time now and SANS is reporting that they've come up with some new tricks. While early obfuscations were easy enough to undo by changing eval() to alert(), they soon shifted to clever use of arguments.callee() in a simple cipher to block it. Worse, now they're using document.referrer, document.location, and location.href to make site-specific versions, too. But SANS managed to stop all that with an 8-line patch to SpiderMonkey that prints out any arguments to eval() before executing them. It seems that malware writers still haven't internalized the lesson of DRM — if my computer can access something in plaintext, I can too."

2 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. first post? by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is too much, now we all will have to download a pre validator for javascript to view the code (what does this code do, i can't read this, I am an 80 year old grandmother...) before going to the webpage and view it...sucks to go on the web these days!

  2. stop by ypctx · · Score: 5, Funny

    stop all that with an 8-line patch to SpiderMonkey

    Cool, and now malware engineers will lose their jobs, you insensitive clods! Internet Explorer to the rescue!