June 18, 2009

Various interesting news and posts


The Web's most dangerous keywords to search for
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3457
I've long known that some 75% of all screensavers found on the Internet via Google search contain malware but thought that some of these words were interesting: free games, work from home, iphone, barack obama. Something else interesting is the finding that when searching for lyrics keywords or phrases with the word 'free' in them one of four sites contain malicious code. Talk about blackhat SEO.

Building an Automated Behavioral Malware Analysis Environment using Open Source Software by Jim Clausing
http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/tools/building_an_automated_behavioral_malware_analysis_environment_using_open_source_software_33129
Looks very promising. On my reading list.

Ex-DOS and Microsoft Exec Heading Up DHS Cyber Post
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9133855
Earlier this month Secretary Napolitano of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security named Philip Reitinger as Director of the National Cyber Security Center in DHS. This is a newly formed office in DHS. Previously Philip had held positions in DOD Cyber Crime Center and was leading the Trustworthy Computing initiative at Microsoft. Philip replaces Rod Beckstrom who vacated the post earlier this year citing lack of funding and internal support. I wish Philip all the best and hope he's able to get what he needs to get things done there.

2 comments:

Brad said...

The current issue of Hakin9 magazine also has an interesting article by Tyler Hudak about building an automated malware analysis environment from scratch, complete with scripts.

GregFeezel said...

Thanks for reminder Brad. Tyler is a very talented malware researcher and those articles (he has two BTW) are great.

Automating Malware Analysis part 1 & 2
http://www.hakin9.org/prt/view/about-the-mag/issue/1023.html
http://www.hakin9.org/prt/view/about-the-mag/issue/1052.html