I read a disturbing article on Tech Republic about how the advent of polymorphous and encrypted malware programs are making traditional signature based anti-virus products ineffective. Basically, malware writers are using sophisticated encryption techniques to keep their products from being detected, and are writing them in such a way that the encryption key is unique for every computer that it installs itself on.
Traditional anti-virus programs rely on something called signatures. A signature is basically a uniquely identifying traits that make a particular malware program identifiable by the anti-virus software, so the AV software can remove the malware. If every malware installation is unique, a signature will not be able to detect it.
Fortunately, most Internet Security Suites contain multiple products, many of which are not dependent on recognizing a signature, but work by noticing the behavior of a program and blocking or disabling the program that exhibits the behavior of malware. None the less, the bar has been raised, and this makes it more important than ever to keep the malware OFF your computer in the first place.
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About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com