McAfee Artemis Claims Protection Online, On-the-Fly

Seems like McAfee has created a new Internet-based service to provide active protection on the fly when a PC gets hit by malicious computer code. "[Artemis] is a lot faster than traditional methodologies and it closes the gap between when a piece of malware is written, discovered, analyzed and protected against ... Artemis is available at no charge as part of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise or McAfee Total Protection Service for small and medium-sized businesses. Artemis is also available for McAfee's consumer products, where the functionality is called Active Protection."

Comments

This is why you read the fine print...

[pushing-robot]

TFA basically states that anything behaving "suspiciously" on your PC will be automatically back to McAfee for analysis. There's no mention at all of possible privacy risks.

Sheezus.

Re:This is why you read the fine print...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is why *you* read TFA and summarize it for us. Real slashdotters can't be bothered, you insensitive clod!

Re:This is why you read the fine print...

[brucifer]

I've actually spoken with McAfee about this at length. If a suspicious file is found (not going into what is deemed suspicious out of professional courtesy) a fingerprint (hash) of the file is sent back to McAfee to see if it matches a known malware sample. If it matches, then the file is deleted or quarantined, or whatever the default behavior is. This only takes place if the malware doesn't trigger one of the other protection pieces in place.

There are settings in both the corp and home editions that let you decided if you want to send samples back to McAfee or just turn the feature off. It's a surprisingly cool thing to come out of one of the big players.

Re:This is why you read the fine print...

[Ed Avis]

Couldn't they just send the list of hashes of malware to your PC and it could be checked locally? It would be a long list and always growing, but not growing fast enough to put any kind of burden on a PC's memory or network capacity. (Suppose 100 new bad programs are identified every day and you need an SHA-256 hash of each one: that's still only about three kilobytes per day.)

The only way their system makes sense is if you send the whole lump of code back for analysis, not just a hash. A hash can just as well be checked locally.

Re:This is why you read the fine print...

[arth1]

But a fingerprint used as a unique identifier isn't safe. What's the guarantee that MacAffee won't keep rainbow tables of everything that has turned out to not be viruses, but someone else might find interesting?

What stops e.g. the government or MPAA (but I repeat myself) from demanding to be told of everyone who have files matching a certain fingerprint? The first justification for this might be child porn. How about fingerprinting all known child porn images, and have the AV software notify the servers whenever there is a match? Undoubtedly that will be very effective! No pesky 4th amendment considerations either!
Then, once it's used for that purpose, how about fingerprinting word documents describing how to make pipe bombs? Undoubtedly useful. And how about the communist manifesto? And, since it works against browser caches too, why not check who has browsed a certain page?

I'm sorry, but I see a lot of problems with this.

Re:This is why you read the fine print...

[arth1]

You're reinventing the wheel here. Viruses that did that were common back in the early 90s.

First, the more stupid AV programs would use a hash. The virus writers countered that simply by including an infection counter. The counter would increase with every infection, modifying the hash.
Then the less gifted AV program writers would hash just certain parts. The virus writers countered that by having the first instruction of the virus be a jump to where the virus was, and the actual virus block being moved at random within a bigger block whenever a new infection occurred.
So then the AV writers scanned for identifiers without looking at the location. The answer from the virus writers was to insert NOP statements at random inside the code, and shuffle these around at every new infection.

Incidentally, my own antivirus program (VScan) would in its deepest mode disassemble the code and emulate the actions of it without executing it, to see whether the result of the code would perform certain actions which only OS routines and viruses would ever do. This foiled some attempts at stealth, like adding numbers to generate an offset, or mutating the registers being used, and also allowed for finding new viruses that used the same techniques but not the same code as older viruses.

Then came XOR'ing the virus, then self-extracting compression, then actual encryption -- and the race is still on.

Artemis is available at no ADDITIONAL charge

[G3ckoG33k]

"Artemis is available at no charge as part of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise or McAfee Total Protection Service for small and medium-sized businesses."

I guess enterprise editions don't come at no charge.

ugh.

[X_Bones]

This advertisement^Warticle looks like it was written by some marketing exec's high-school kid. It's chock full of clumsy grammar and useless buzzwords, yet somehow almost completely content-free. Can someone please explain to me again why this belongs on the front page?

Re:ugh.

[interiot]

More here:

This new technology (Artemis) looks for suspicious PE files [EXEs, DLLs, etc], and when found it sends some kind of checksum (with no personal/sensitive data) to a central database server hosted by McAfee AVERT Labs. The central database server is constantly updated with new discovered malware, and is McAfee's malware queue for which no official DATs have been created so far. If a match is found in the central database, the scanner will report and handle the malware detection. The files in McAfee's queue have not been[sic] undergone any analysis, but they are crosschecked by McAfee's huge whitelists to avoid false alarms.

By having a remotely maintained blacklist it may be able to provide faster protection to new malware than vendors which release signature updates many times at[sic] day to cover the high amounts of new malware appearing every hour.

...

Update (May 2008): we re-tested Artemis over our clean-set in May 2008 and now that McAfee has expanded its whitelists, Artemis still produces relatively many false alarms, but at least no longer on very important/critical files.

What could go wrong?

And I bet...

[Perseid]

...it'll only take 128MB of RAM and 30% of your processor!*

* Requirements in Vista may be higher

Re:And I bet...

[martinw89]

...it'll only take 128MB of RAM and 30% of your processor!* **

* Requirements in Vista may be higher

**Home users and other non-enterprise users may need to sacrifice a goat for acceptable performance. Please send Proof of Sacrifice to:
        3965 Freedom Circle
        Santa Clara, CA 95054
        USA
In the event that you cannot supply a Proof of Sacrifice: Please wait for Earth to acquire a second moon and we may let your browser connect to websites, in which case you can find more about our alternative methods.

Re:And I bet...

[whoever57]

...it'll only take 128MB of RAM and 30% of your processor!*

And what percent of your monthly data transfer allowance?

Re:And I bet...

[SurturZ]

...it'll only take 128MB of RAM and 30% of your processor!*

* Requirements in Vista may be higher

...and as a service to our customers, you will be automatically upgraded to the professional version which takes doubles the RAM and processor requirements for only a 50% increase in your monthly fee. You don't need to do anything*!

* Customers may opt out of this offer by finding checking the disabled checkbox that says "opt out" on the hidden page on our website. WARNING: If you somehow manage to opt out, we'll take it personally.

(I'm just waiting for the day my account gets automatically upgraded to the point where it starts automatically buying shares in McAfee)

I guess this is the new "cool thing"

[RootWind]

I guess all the security companies are heading toward community based databases. Other similar products include
F-Secure Deepguard: http://www.f-secure.com/deepguard
Threatfire: http://www.threatfire.com/ (recently acquired by Symantec... so they are in the game now)
DriveSentry: http://www.drivesentry.com/
Prevx: http://www.prevx.com/

Antivirus software is bullshit

[Mike610544]

when a PC gets hit by malicious computer code.

A PC doesn't "get hit" by "malicious computer code" too often these days. The target unintentionally (but by their own action) runs malicious code because they're ignorant. Even running Windows (patched w/ firewall) there aren't many ways you can get pwned without clicking on the "RUN VIRUS NOW" button (admittedly recognizing the ways that button can masquerade itself is a skill.)

Trying to protect people against themselves is futile. Antivirus software is like the Maginot Line. It only works against shit they're expecting.

There's no substitute for educating computer users about what's not to be clicked upon (and/or run as root.)

Re:Antivirus software is bullshit

[Itninja]

I agree there is not substitute for educating users about the pitfalls of getting click-happy. But it's a bit naive to just call all AV software BS across the board. There are any number of ways to get 'pwned' without ever having to click a single button - especially in Windows. One that comes to mind is our old friend 'autorun'. Every Windows system since '95 has come with this little chestnut turned on by default. You want to put a keystroke logger or other malicious code on someones' Windows system? Just burn it to a CD and write an autorun.inf file to do whatever you like silently and without user interaction. Without any security software running, the user is totally hosed.

You think you can educate the user(s) to remember to always hold down shift when inserting a CD/DVD? Yeah, good luck with that.

Big Brother gets to examine all your files

[Animats]

Here's McAfee's explanation of how it works:

1. A user receives a file that the scan agent deems suspicious (for example, an encrypted or packed file) and for which there is no signature in the local .DAT database.
2. Using McAfee Artemis Technology, the agent sends a fingerprint of the file for instant lookup to the comprehensive database at McAfee Avert® Labs.
3. In less than a second, if the fingerprint is identified as known malware, an appropriate response is sent to the user to block or quarantine the file.

In other words, every time you download a binary file, McAfee HQ knows about it and logs it. Was this dreamed up by the RIAA, the NSA, or the anti-child-porno people?

Flawed methodology

[mcrbids]

Using anti-virus to "protect" your computer is like trying to avoid collisions by studying your rear-view mirror. By definition, it only "catches" compromises AFTER THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL.

Then, we have to trust that:

1) The compromise is one of the known viruses, or falls into the realm of "suspsicious activity".

2) The compromise was successfully noticed.

3) All aspects of the virus are known and can be removed.

4) You (the end user) have sufficient system permissions to remove the virus.

5) You (the end user) have all updates applied.

The whole system is woefully fragile and ineffective. Most estimates today seldom put A/V effectiveness above 50% effective, despite the considerable resources consumed by the software. It may be better than poking yourself with a sharp stick, but not by much!

And here's a good example of this: My kids' computer. It's an Athlon XP 3400 with a GB of RAM and an 80 GB HDD. I got sick of reloading the !@#@$ computer every 3 months when it got all horked with god-knows-what so I did the nasty, this time.

I installed ALL O/S patches while hooked up to a private network. I installed AVG antivirus. I let the kids only use the computer as the most limited user available: guest. I installed FF and made it the default browser, along with Open Office and a few legal games. (not warez!) I set WinXP to self-update every single day, and not ask about it. The Windows firewall was on, and the computer is on a NAT network, connected to another highly firewalled DMZ.

Despite all this hassle and inconvenience, the system is STILL behaving rather poorly, 6 months later. Bought me 3 months, but only three more.

Compare/contrast with the Mac. Same kids. Same amount of usage. Same type of usage for the same purposes. Blogging, MySpace, games, homework. All else the same, but I never bothered with antivirus. Yet it works fine! No bogging down. No strange behavior. Same thing with my Linux laptop, which after some 10 years is still using the same /home partition.

Good security isn't something you "band aid", it's something you design from the beginning.

Re:Flawed methodology

[Urkki]

Good security isn't something you "band aid", it's something you design from the beginning.

Yes, but that still doesn't work. You'd have to remove the human element. Enough nuking from orbit should remove both the virus creator and the hapless user, so as long as you protect the actual computer from the EMPs during the bombardment that's probably the safest way to go.

Re:Flawed methodology

[im_thatoneguy]

Here here.

I usually run on a DMZ. No firewall local or at the router.

I even have a dynamicDNS directed to my main computer.

I scan regularly. And haven't been infected in over 8 years. (which was my fault for opening an attachment without thinking.)

My current windows install is about 2 years old with LOTS of use. The computer is 5 years old and it's time to junk it. It's also still suffering from a 4 year old Norton uninstall that seems to have never completed and is getting worse. Norton was the worst thing that ever happened to one of my computers and I still haven't completely purged it.

What junks up my Windows PCs aren't the illicit viruses that get installed without my permission. It's all the crap that comes along with little freeware worthless pieces of crap that I need to use once to convert some file or another.

Windows PCs and Macs get used very differently. Having run both of them I used them very differently myself--largely because there just isn't the world of little crappy apps available.

I'm with parent. Your comparison is apples to oranges.

Re:Flawed methodology

[rolfwind]

Bullshit. You must be a retard if you trust anything your kids say. They may be surfing the same sites, but they're downloading and executing ZOMG U MUST SEE THIS!!1 shit on the PC which isn't compatible with any other OS.

I haven't seen a virus on my PCs since my 286, which came preloaded with them, and my own deliberate HPAVC collection from the BBS days.

He's not trusting what his kids say, he's seeing the results for himself. And who cares what his kids download? They had limited user accounts, it SHOULD NOT HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE what they downloaded.

Some windows users love closing their eyes to the results and stammer and sputter about marketshare and all that crap - but the fact is that Windows has more attack vectors for whatever reason. Like your parent said, security is a bandaid on windows, not built in. I don't know the entire reasons for that, I heard that in unix, services run as a normal user account, sandboxed away from causing damage while in Windows many services run as root - meaning only one has to be compromised for something malicious to gain control.

There are probably other reasons and the OP may have well talked about Ubuntu instead of a Mac -- but your sample size of one is unconvincing from every angle. You're obviously not the average computer user, nor do you anticipate the truly stupid shit some people do and how kids play with their computers.

Running as root would be just as stupid (something Ubuntu does not have one do by default but I believe Mac does?) but having extensive contact with the administrators in my old school - they let the macs be while the Windows based systems are set to be reimaged every night simply because it's too much of a pain to keep Windows clean for more than a week among groups of students. Default UAC in Vista might have finally changed that, but their machines still run the cheapest form of XP (without UAC) and it also does not get rid of the services issue.

Re:Flawed methodology

[stevied]

I'm pondering the following set-up:

• 1Gb ageing Athlon box
• Ubuntu installed on the raw hardware
• Virtualbox installed on Ubuntu
• WinXP running in Virtualbox with about 50% of the RAM.
• Auto login set up on Ubuntu and WinXP, so apart from the Ubuntu splash screen, there's nothing particularly scary to see for the dyed-the-wool Windows user I'm jumping through all these hoops for.

This allows various cool stuff: incoming HTTP and IMAP connections could be scanned with ClamAV, for example. What would be really great would be to just discard changes to the main VB disk image at the end of every session. Obviously user docs + data would be somewhere else, and could potentially get infected, but that's a lot less data to periodically virus scan, or to restore if anything does get in to it.

Preliminary tests suggest that virtualized windows without on-access scanning runs quite a lot more smoothly than a bare-metal install does with it. The added bonus is that I can ssh into the underlying Ubuntu system and do admin with the rather richer toolset available there than on Windows (though greater personal familiarity with that toolset is also an issue, I admit.)

Re:Flawed methodology

[slittle]

Linux has this capability through a recent innovation called a "package management system."

Right... we'll talk about this again when Myspace is full of RPMs and DEBs.

So, what's the difference between Microsoft Windows and Linux in this regard? It comes down to one word, "passwords."

Users will enter passwords on command like good little trained monkeys, so nothing has changed.

Password protection only saves you from, eg. browser exploits installing backdoors without your knowledge. Most Windows malware/crapware is installed deliberately at the request of the user, no raindance or blood sacrifice ritual can stop that without turning "their" computer into a black box appliance.

If a user without appropriate permissions attempts to install 3rd party software in a directory they're not permitted to run in, they're not permitted to install it. However, they are free to install software in their own home folder.

The OP already said they were running as Guest, so that's precisely what happened.

Fortunately, most software written for Linux can easily be installed in it's own context and will run properly.

You can install standard RedHat RPMs into your own home directory? And find/install updates automatically, resolve dependencies in your private space, etc? Awesome!

Regardless, it seems we've now established that running/installing software as a normal user, in areas writeable by normal users is acceptable, right? What kind of brain damage is preventing you from seeing how this is not more than enough access for malware/crapware mischief?

Run me through your thought pattern, because I can't understand where you're coming from and how you can possibly you arrive at a non-exploitable conclusion. As far as I can tell, it goes like this: user downloads omgponies.rpm from Myspace and either installs it to ~/omgponies or enters the system password for a root install. The first thing it does is run a post install script which then inserts spyware, crapware toolbars, or whatever into every dotfile orifice in the user's directory, or for a root install every damn where. User doesn't even have to run the program that was in it.

Right? Congratulations, welcome to having an operating system that someone other than nerds gives a shit about. How is this different from what is happening on Windows?

Privilege separation is a red herring on the desktop - administrative access is simply not necessary for most crapware to function. The main reason to run as Admin is purely defensive, to disable anti-virus and/or install hidden drivers, etc. so that the user can't get rid of it, rarely is Admin actually needed to perform its primary purpose. And should it ask for the Admin password, the user will supply the password because you, oh Lord of the System, have been training them to do it.

Almost every app needs full control of the system and full access to the registry.

Complete bullshit.

Have you even used Windows in the last 10 years at all? Especially in a corporate environment, Windows' security features are substantially better than other desktop OSs, the only issue is actually implementing them. Few will, because users scream bloody murder when they're told "you're not allowed to do that any more." But replace Windows with Linux and tell them instead that "it's not compatible," they'll accept it.

So what are we to take from "Artemis"?

[Gordonjcp]

If your computer is infected by a virus, it prays to be shot by one of Artemis's silver arrows so that it may die a swift and painless death? Is that it?

Re:This is why you read the preview.

[g0dsp33d]

I'm not a fan of sending stuff out to them. I prefer the way PC Tools (free firewall / AV) handles this. They use a product called Threatfire to monitor all processes for unusual activity. It has the usual problem of the click to get rid of messages mentality, but they are fairly infrequent unless you install a plethora of applications. Basically you get the same protection (if you actually read what pops up) and as a bonus that secret document about your buried treasure won't be sent elsewhere if there is a macro in it.

Only windows let you do it.

[DrYak]

Bullshit. You must be a retard if you trust anything your kids say. They may be surfing the same sites, but they're downloading and *executing* ZOMG U MUST SEE THIS!!1 shit on the PC which isn't compatible with any other OS. {note:emphasis mine}

Yes, you have a point about the "compatible" part. But you missed something fundamental.

The major flaw that the parent wanted to point is that, because of the sloppy design of Windows XP (partly inherits from its NT ancestrors which had some privileges restriction but never really used it, partly inhertis from its DOS/Win9x inspiration where every software does whatever pleases it),
you *can* download and execute code trivially in the first place.

In Linux, downloading and executing random bit of code isn't trivial, on purpose. Before executing, the use must first manually grant execution rights to the piece that was downloaded (i.e.: "+x" chmod isn't activated by default), and then, the code only runs with the privileges it inherits from the user (non administrative privileges. All the juicy bits like sending raw network packet, deploying a root-kit, etc. aren't accessible).

The only real canonical way to install a software in Linux is going through the package manager and install it from one of the (trusted) repositories. (you can "apt-get", "yum", "YaST", etc. to install additional software)

in short : in linux, you can't download and run a random exe. you can only install an exe from a repository, otherwise you have to do special steps (downloaded material isn't runnable by default).
in windows every idiot could download and run whatever at a simple click.
only the most recent version Vista has an UAC that asks the user to confirm its intent to run foreign code. But, most users either disable UAC because it's too bothersome, or have developed a spinal reflex to "Ok-Yes-click-thru" any thing on the screen as a habit they got from all the repetitive "cancel or allow ?".

What a timely announcement

[GMFTatsujin]

Spore comes out today: perfect timing!

At last I can install EA games with confidence! And perhaps play a music CD from Sony!