Understanding X-morphic exploitation

The concept of malware morphing is not new. For years, malware authors and anti-virus researchers have documented and classified the methods used to obfuscate and hide malware code with each infection. And while these techniques have been a source of innovation for web browser exploit developers, in their first generation they were relatively ineffective against traditional signature-based protection engines for the following reasons:

* Malware authors did not have the organizational structure or financial backing to develop obfuscation techniques that would be effective against modern security solutions.

* Patches were generally available when an exploit appeared.

* The methods used for attracting victims to malicious websites were relatively unsophisticated and static in nature.