the user is responsible but ill-equipped

no doubt by now many of you have read about microsoft saying that the reason there was more malware on vista than on windows 2000 was because of the user... there's been a bit of a knee-jerk reaction against this but to a certain extent microsoft is actually right...

robert sandilands demonstrates this reaction against microsoft's argument quite well in his post "Is Vista more or less secure than Windows 2000?"... in fact, when he started talking about how the user shouldn't need to be security experts and just want to get their job done i felt like i was greeting an old acquaintance (i'm referring of course to the argument - robert and i are not actually acquainted yet)...

it's true that computer users shouldn't need to be security experts and it's certainly not realistic to expect they can be, that much i'll agree with, but there's another truth that some don't seem like they want to face: being security vegetables isn't really going to work out for the user either...

i shouldn't need to be an automotive expert in order to drive from point A to point B... i just want to get to my destination and don't want to be bothered with all the technical details... that should be possible, shouldn't it? sure is, but if i want to get there safely i have to follow certain safety protocols colloquially known as the rules of the road... the average person (with some notable darwinian exceptions) understands the need for following safety rules while cruising down the highway, but for the most part they aren't even aware of the existence of the security rules for using computers (were you expecting an information superhighway reference here?)...

mostly they just know they need an anti-virus product... maybe some of them have heard of a firewall, but for most people that's the extent of their awareness of secure computing behaviour and unfortunately that is not enough to keep them safe/secure...

people often liken using a computer to using a mundane household appliance like a toaster, but such people should get over themselves because even with a toaster people need to know not to stick a fork in it... there are safety rules for virtually every tool in existence - some are simply a matter of common sense (though really they're often things we pick up from safety awareness initiatives when we're young), some should be a matter of common sense (like not operating a propane barbecue indoors), and some require the consumer be informed of how to use the tool safely...

using a computer is one of those things where the consumer needs to be informed because safe/secure computer use behaviours haven't penetrated our culture yet, and because the cause is often too far removed from the effect for users to make the necessary connection... and like it or not, the cause often involves the user - when the user gets malware on their system it is usually at least partially as a result of something s/he did or did not do...

that makes the user responsible for what happens to their machine... note that this isn't the same as blaming the user, being responsible and being at fault are two different things... you can't blame someone if there wasn't a reasonable expectation for them to know better, and currently such an expectation wouldn't be reasonable... in the grand scheme of things, however, it should be reasonable; we should be able to expect that of computer users - if boy scouts can "always be prepared" then why are we still feeding computer users pablum instead of teaching them to take responsibility for their actions/inactions and the consequences thereof...

av-comparatives vs panda

by now i would imagine that most people keeping an eye on the industry have noticed a bit of bad blood emerging between panda and av-comparatives...

luis corrons' post on the panda blog seemed a little like holding someone's feet to the fire - something i've done on occasion so on that level i can't really fault them (and really, sometimes people's feet do need to be held to the fire)... however, there are some very important tricks to doing this successfully... one of the most important being to not have a financial motivation to make the other party look bad - i get away with the things i say in part because i'm not actually in the anti-malware industry, when i say someone's doing something bad there's little or no possibility for my actions to be attributable sour grapes... luis, who represents a product that has apparently been tested by av-comparatives in the past has a financial motivation to call av-comparatives methods into question if that product didn't fare as well as one might hope in the past... perhaps his characterization of the testing at av-comparatives is correct, perhaps it isn't, but a panda representative is not in the best position to be pointing it out...

robert sandilands over at the authentium blog recognized this and threw in his own two cents coming from the perspective of one whose product has never been tested by av-comparatives... unfortunately, robert opted for the personal approach, subtracting the problem element that luis encountered but adding nothing good to replace it... personally, i'm not the least bit interested in his reaction to meeting andreas clementi, there's nothing of substance or value to be found in insinuations...

you see, the second important trick to pulling off holding someone's feet to the fire is to cite specific examples of problems, and back them up with evidence if at all possible so that your criticisms are more than just baseless claims (or worse, simple character assassination/defamation)... luis tried at least to point to a specific problem when he brought up the issue of paid services provided by av-comparatives, but botched the job by giving the apparently misleading impression that av-comparatives charges av vendors money to be included in their tests (which would certainly call the independence of av-comparatives into question if it were true)...

of course, even if the fees charged by av-comparatives are for things other than inclusion in the test they're still in an awkward position... it's very difficult to profess independence from av vendors when there's any kind of relationship with them... look at virus bulletin, sister company to sophos, which suffered questions about it's independence for years... those concerns fade away a little bit every time sophos fails to achieve a vb100 award but what a dysfunctional non-competitor relationship that winds up being; one company can only do well at the expense of the other... andreas clementi did well to clarify what av-comparatives' fees were for in his post about fee structure, more transparency may not dispel doubts but it at least gives people the information they need to judge for themselves, but i fear that so long as av-comparatives derives any financial benefit directly from members of the industry it's supposed to provide metrics for, the independence of av-comparatives and by extension the impartiality and validity of those metrics will be at least somewhat in question...

andreas' initial reaction to the panda blog post was pretty obviously written in the heat of the moment (which is perhaps why the post has been removed) but there are some issues raised that deserve attention, not the least of which being the apparently materially false statements made by panda, as well as how significant any specific problems with the testing at av-comparatives (should they actual exist) are...

(as a side note, this has highlighted a problem with using google cache to link to historical items as both cached documents appear to differ from what was originally seen)

and then hell froze over

anti-virus companies do not hire virus writers, if i've said it once i've said it a thousand times... oh sure, there was that one example where a company which wasn't even in the security industry (their main focus being graphics) hired benny (aka marek strihavka) to be the lead developer of their anti-virus software (which wasn't actually for public consumption at the time) because they felt he was reformed (even though he still makes viruses available on his webpage) and was then thoroughly denounced by multliple members of the av industry... then, of course, there's the case of sven jaschan who was hired by a security company - but again NOT an anti-virus company or even a company looking to make anti-virus software, so one could say that he doesn't count (especially since his hiring resulted in the company losing an av company it had hoped to partner with)...

it may seem like these violate the av companies don't hire virus writers rule but in reality these edge cases (neither company is technically an anti-virus company) actually reinforce the rule by virtue of what the av industry does in response...

so you can imagine, then, how far my jaw dropped when john sharp, founder of authentium, solicited applications from students who graduated from a virus writing curriculum:

Authentium to George Ledin's students: if you're interested in a job, we'll look at your resume. Based on your training, our assumption is that you're going to do a better job helping us detect and defeat malware than someone without this knowledge.

now, i realize one might argue that people who learned to write viruses in school don't have the same motives as those who write and release viruses (though it occurs to me that a virus writing curriculum would appeal to exactly the type of person who would write and release viruses so you may actually be dealing with a population whose bad apple content is higher than average) and the debate has been weighed in on by far more influential individuals than myself - but, with many companies refusing to hire such students just as they would virus writers, mr. sharp's words are unexpected to say the least... i wonder if he's shared his philosophy with helmuth freericks, who was listed as the vp of r&d at authentium when he signed the public letter against teaching virus writing that's being hosted by the anti-virus information exchange network...

things get more interesting than that, however... authentium's (formerly command software system's) command anti-virus used to license the f-prot scanning engine and given the identical naming produced by the two it seems like it still does... that engine is produced by frisk software international... frisk has made his feelings on the subject of virus writing curricula very clear, stating that it's ethically unacceptable, so it'll be interesting to see what if anything becomes of this if authentium really does hire students who've taken such courses...

the blue pill leaves a foul aftertaste

yes, i know i've blogged about it before a couple of times already but time has passed and events have unfolded...

black hat is over, joanna rutkowska's presentation is complete and the media just lapped it up... microsoft expressed interest (and why wouldn't they when it bypassed protection mechanisms in their latest and greatest and most secure OS ever?) and probably others too...

in fact, at least one (perhaps more) anti-virus vendor has expressed interest in obtaining more information and that's when everything changed...

see, it was made clear way back in june that the blue pill wouldn't be available for download by the public and i thought to myself well gee that's a good thing... i mean it's clear that if it were freely (as in speech) available that the bad guys would adapt it and use it for their own purposes (if/when 64bit amd platforms become a significant hardware base)... it sounded very promising ethically, it seemed like the people holding the cards (coseinc) were going to be responsible (a stark contrast with so much of what goes on in the stealthkit/rootkit domain)...

so imagine my surprise and disappointment to read that in order for anti-virus companies to get additional information they'll have to pay money... yes, that's right, av companies are expected to pay for access to malware... as if malware creators don't already have enough of a financial incentive these days... by paying for malware, anti-virus companies would be giving malware creators (academic or otherwise) more reasons to create even more malware... that is not something av companies should ever be contributing to as it makes them part of the problem rather than part of the solution...

it's not like the malware creators were simply discovering an existing flaw, the potential for malware doesn't depend on flaws and joanna rutkowska made it clear that the blue pill doesn't depend on any flaws so the growing (and contraversial) practice of paying vulnerability researchers for vulnerability information (on the basis that they've done useful work for the vendor whose product they found flaws in by finding those flaws so they can be fixed) doesn't apply...

thankfully the folks at authentium did the right thing... i hope more do the same and come out publicly against the practice of paying for malware... and for those that don't, just remember what happened to the reputation of a certain someone who bought virus collections way back when...

"mine's bigger"

yeah, i know it's a pretty provocative statement, but that's pretty much what authentium are saying in this blog post...

mcafee lets everyone know their product is about to reach the 200,000 threats detected milestone and authentium pipes and and says 'well we're about to reach 300,000'... classic - no really, i'm surprised there are anti-virus companies still playing this particular numbers game... i thought it went out of style years ago...

now let me ask you something, do you really think there are 100,000 pieces of malware being missed by mcafee's product? you can't trust the raw numbers reported by vendors, unfortunately, and not just because some of them have apparent inferiority complexes...

this is old news for some of us but for those who don't know yet, here's how it works... say you have 2 malware samples that are related to each other (they belong to the same malware family) - scanner-A detects both pieces of malware using 2 separate signatures and scanner-B detects both pieces of malware using only 1 signature... now both detect the same number of real world threats, but the way they count is by counting the number of distinct malware definitions in the scanner's database so scanner-A will say it detects 2 pieces of malware where scanner-B will only say it detects 1 piece of malware because they're similar enough that they look the same to scanner-B...

now whether a scanner needs 1 or 2 signatures in the scenario above doesn't really have any bearing on which scanner is better, there are benefits and drawbacks for on both sides and it's not always scanner-A that requires more signatures... that said, you should be able to easily see how one scanner's numbers can be very different from those of another... now a 50% difference is considerable and i find that very suspicious, especially when f-secure pegged the number at 185,000 earlier this year which is much more in line with mcafee's 200,000 figure...

regardless, the numbers that vendors report just do not mean what they otherwise seem to mean... comparing the number of signatures between different products is a pointless exercise and it ultimately misleads the reader into thinking that one product is better than another when it may not be true... and if you're detecting the scent of snake oil in that practise, well me too...