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Security Industry Faces Attacks It Can't Stop
itwbennett writes "The takedown of the Mariposa botnet and so-called advanced persistent threat attacks, such as the one that compromised Google systems in early December, were hot topics at the RSA conference last week. What both Mariposa and the Google attacks illustrate, and what went largely unsaid at RSA, was that the security industry has failed to protect paying customers from some of today's most pernicious threats, writes Robert McMillan. Traditional security products are simply not much help, said Alex Stamos, a partner with Isec Partners, one of the companies investigating the APT attacks. 'All of the victims we've worked with had perfectly installed antivirus,' he said. 'They all had intrusion detection systems and several had Web proxies scan content.'"
the "victims" were all running MS Windows...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
[citation needed]
Oh and conspiracy theories are not adequate citations. You could at least try to not sound like an idiot.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Oh... like how the police can't prevent crime?
The "security industry" is NOT interested in putting itself out of business by selling WORKING products.
That's why the "perfectly installed antivirus" gets daily updates and STILL CANNOT TELL A GOOD FILE FROM A BAD FILE.
Here's a radical new concept. How about an antivirus program that BLOCKS file writes to the operating system UNLESS that file can be confirmed to be "good"?
It's far easier to identify the files that SHOULD be allowed than it is to identify a possible threat.
The security industry will always be unable to protect everyone 100% of the time. It is impossible to protect the clueless from anything.
AntiVirus is imperfect as it relies on signatures and known processes, and will always be imperfect. Same with IDS and the lot of it.
In my opinion, as long as the security industry, and end-users as a whole, continue with the thought that end-user basic security ignorance is OK, things will never get better. The sooner all end users are clued-in instead of clueless, the sooner we may have a ray of hope.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
The Microsoft operating system has been, always will be insecure. No amount of anti this, anti that or how update date your windows box is; it is not safe to use for any kind of sensitive data.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Film at 11.
One thing that shouldn't surprise me anymore but keeps surprising me is that it seems like the more money you pay for software, the more half-assed it is. You get an off-the-shelf product like Quickbooks, it's impressive. You look at stuff that's industry-specific, specialized software that doesn't have a lot of competition, it costs thousands and feels primitive in comparison. It must be the lack of competition means there's no real reason to improve the product beyond what it already does.
I'm sure there are some exceptions to my experience, naturally. But these niche applications generally seem to be very expensive and primitive.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
How about an antivirus program that BLOCKS file writes to the operating system UNLESS that file can be confirmed to be "good"?
Who has the authority to confirm, say, your shopping list as good? Or, if you're considering only files marked executable, a shell script that your co-worker wrote?
There is no perfect security, offline or online.
I like to say there are 3 main types of attacks:
We have mechanisms that are pretty good at class 1. We can shore up our defenses enough to not be the low hanging fruit to get some protection against level 2.
Level 3 is only starting to enter the public eye. There is no defense that will withstand a well funded targeted attack. The best you can do is make it too difficult for most attackers, and monitor and clean up after the really good ones.
This is true for airline security, concert security, bank security, web site security, and network security. There is no impenetrable defense for any of these. You minimize the risk as much as you can, then build your systems so they can be effectively monitored and rebuilt/restored in case of attack.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
That's what makes "spear-phishing" so ridiculously dangerous - if the attacker is spending his entire day on you specifically, you're going to need a little more than an off-the-shelf unmonitored solution. And if you're a "high visibility target" then you are going to need even more, defense in depth and a dedicated team for your security. It's not reasonable to expect "but I installed Norton!" to come from a CEO of a big company for example. Bigger assets require better, customized defenses.
Bigger targets attract more than script kiddies and people that are buying hacking kits. They attract entire groups and organizations of highly skilled and specialized hackers that know how to analyze your defenses, have experience getting around all but the industrial grade security tools, and can customize their work and cover their tracks.
It's no different than complaining that neighborhood security is a mess because your padlock didn't keep your bike from getting stolen. If you have a really nice bike, and a smart thief really wants it, you'd better have something better than a crappy $7 masterlock on it. You can't blame the lock if the bike gets stolen. You were using the wrong tool for the job and the outcome should come as no surprise. You were expecting way too much (security) from way too little.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The problem is that they haven't even hit the 50% mark. They cannot even, reliably, detect threats that are over a year old.
Exactly. Which is why that needs to change. Instead of trying to chase the latest variant of a threat, why not save time and effort and identify the LEGITIMATE files? Then, if something is trying to write a file to the OS portion of your drive, and that file is not recognized, it should block it (and MAYBE allow the user to override it after a few hoops and maybe online comparisons with the latest threat databases).
I think it is different. The "security industry" depends upon the ignorance of users and the continuation of those users being infected.
It is not in the "security industry"'s best interest to commit to real improvements in security.
No? Then it isn't an issue.
Now, if you're trying to store your shopping list on c:\windows\system32 ... then the anti-virus app should block you.
As for who has the authority ... that would be the anti-virus vendor. The same people who you've given the authority to tell you what is a virus today.
A side benefit of this would be that the anti-virus app could also tell you that you have vulnerable, unpatched apps on your system.
Yeah, read the whole thread. You might notice that that was my original point.
The "security industry" has no real interest in solving (or reducing) the problem because they're making so much money off of it.
If they did want to fix the issue, the simple example I gave would go a long way towards doing just that.
But they don't do that. See the sentence above the sentence right above this one.
If security is that difficult, then why haven't all the banks been emptied by now?
There are some problems that you have to pay money to have.
True, but Windows OS isn't one of them. It costs just as much to buy a PC for a home or small office without preinstalled Windows OS as it does to buy one with preinstalled Windows OS. The common explanation for this is that major shareware publishers subsidize the cost of a Windows OS license by paying PC makers to include unregistered versions of their products in the default install.
You are asserting that the costs of a computer end at purchase, they do not. With Windows, the purchase price is only the beginning of your costs. Anti-virus, maintenance, upgrading, rebooting, these costs dwarf the purchase price.
Correlation can very well imply causation. Let me prove it to you:
When people call me a thief for viewing pages without ads (by blocking Flash), I rebut with this. I trust Slashdot. I may not trust Slashdot's advertising partners. And Slashdot doesn't (and probably can't) vet the ads before they're displayed.
Here's a recent example of malware-infested ads appearing on a pretty big site:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10466753-245.html
Specifically ads included in the Drudge Report:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10466044-245.html
I've often been tempted to go all out with ad blocking, not because I hate ads, but because a new exploit could make e.g. simple images a vector for attack.
Or we could do true layered defenses in security and redesign the OS to support them. Don't put crap into ring 0 just for "performance" purposes. Use micro-kernels and use messaging systems for interprocess communications. Place OS files into their own, protected partition and control access rigorously. Sign them. Allow unsigned drivers if need be, but sandbox them. Limit "shared" libraries and directories (hello Microsoft and Adobe). Drop legacy application support unless seriously sandboxed in a virtual environment. Heck, sandbox current applications the same way. And so on.
Today's processors and multi-core systems are fast enough to handle the overhead. Drives are huge. Allocate a full 10% of the processor budget to security. Why should we not sacrifice a few FPS in Quake or Unreal for hardened systems that are much, much, much more resistant to tampering and infection?
We know what we need to do. Just do it.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.