The challenge of custom malware from advanced attackers
The challenge of custom malware and targeted attacks is a bi-product of today's rapidly evolving attacker. The problem with ‘custom malware' was mentioned to SC Magazine a year ago by Stephen Howes, CEO of GrIDsure, who said that he thought ‘one of the problems that the industry faces is that malware authors can come up with incremental ways of breaking the system'.
In September last year, he said: “This is more than malware, you can buy gizmos that capture keystrokes so a cleaner can plug one into a computer and at the end of the week they will collect it with the details recorded.”
Speaking at the recent Symantec Vision Conference, Francis deSouza, SVP of Symantec's security group, said that attackers have eclipsed hackers as the largest threat to organisations as they become more professional. Looking at modern malware such Stuxnet, he said it was clear that this evolved threat is now commonplace. He said: "Stuxnet is several man years of work involved in putting it together and involved a collection of skills."
