Bulletin

An indispensable source of reference for anyone concerned with computer security, the Bulletin is the forum through which leading security researchers publish the latest security research and information in a bid to share knowledge with the security community. Publications cover the latest threats, new developments and techniques in the security landscape, opinions from respected members of the industry, and more. The Bulletin archives offer informative articles going back to 1989. Our editorial team is happy to hear from anyone interested in submitting a paper for publication.

Hidan and dangerous

The latest edition to the W32/Chiton family is a malicious plug-in for one of the most popular tools of the anti-malware trade: the IDA disassembler and debugger. Peter Ferrie provides the details.

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Peerbot: catch me if you can

In early 2007, Trojan.Peacomm (a.k.a. the ‘Storm trojan’) demonstrated that legitimate P2P protocols can be used effectively to coordinate virus networks. Elia Florio and Mircea Ciubotariu explain how.

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Real-world testing of email anti-virus solutions

Testing security products can be a complex task - especially validating the effectiveness of technology against threats that evolve at an extremely rapid rate. Adam O'Donnell consdiers the current state of anti-virus testing.

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Enhancing the efficiency of learning-based spam filters

The effectiveness of content-based spam filters is directly related to the quality of the features used in the filter’s classification model. Vipul Sharma and Steve Lewis discuss how retiring features that have become ineffective can improve the…

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A phish with a sting in the tail

Martin Overton describes an unusual phishing scam in which traditional social engineering phishing techniques are combined with a malware download that renders the victim PC unbootable once the phishing deed has been done.

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Defeating IRC bots on the internal network

Fuelled by financial incentives and readily available source code, malware authors pursue aggressively the development of newer bot modules and the exploitation of code into these bots. Vinoo Thomas and Nitin Jyoti describe how an IRC honeypot can be…

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Web server botnets and hosting farms as attack platforms

Web server malware may be used to establish a foothold for the general exploitation of the infected server, or to compromise the server for specific purposes ranging from DDoS to spamming. Some more advanced uses include the construction of botnet…

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OSBF-Lua

One of the top performers in the TREC 2006 spam filter evaluation was OSBF-Lua. Here, its creator Fidelis Assis describes the technology behind it.

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Cain and Abul

As the decline in file-infecting viruses continues, it is perhaps fitting that the newest virus for the 64-bit platform, W64/Abul, is less advanced than the one that came before it. Despite this, though, Abul implements some new features that make it…

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The malware epidemic

'I still believe that education is one of the best defences against any problem.' Eric Kedrosky, Nortel.

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