According to the Hungarian IT security developer VirusBuster Ltd., the first 3 months of 2008 brought much more computer malware than the previous 10 years. While by the end of 2007 VirusBuster products were able to identify slightly less than half million viruses, after the first 3 months the number of identifiable malwares almost reached, and by the end of April well surpassed the million.

This means that by the end of 2007 there were 209 thousand virus signatures in the company's database, and in the first quarter of 2008 professionals of VirusBuster had to create 298 thousand new virus definitions (see graph). This database file of virus signatures - or virus definitions - is used by VirusBuster's security solutions to identify malwares. One signature is suitable to identify more malwares, so by this number of virus definitions the database can cover all the malwares



The growing number of malwares has some further important consequences. There's a general principle: security experts try to catch viruses before the users The jump in the number of malwares - which is expected to be a continuous process - directs security experts' attention to those tools, which help them to solve the problem. Examples of such tools are e-mail filters, "worm traps", "honeypots"; IRC, P2P, and IM traffic monitoring devices.

By growing number of new viruses security developers have shorter time to analyze a specific malware, since there are 30 000(!) new virus samples in every single day. The examination of more viruses requires more researchers, and more technical resources. But the staff and the resources can't be increased endlessly, and this fact means there's a need for rather quality changes.

In the area of virus research, the productivity can be increased mainly by the enhancement of automation. But the high number of malwares turns up new requirements from security products as well. Firstly, because of its growing size the signature database could consume more and more system memory. To solve this problem VirusBuster's security researchers developed a new technology, which helps to use more signatures, and detect more viruses.

The variants of viruses are coming so quickly, they sometimes can't be detected even by the newest signature database. This phenomenon can be controlled only by new generic recognition technologies, and these methods must be much more proactive than ever before.

We have to admit there's no absolute protection against viruses. IT malware infections can happen from time to time. There's no security solution on the market, which guarantees the ultimate protection. This sheer fact means that the security systems sometimes have to work effectively in infected IT environments. They must clean viruses, and remediate problems so the health and productivity of users' system could be restored entirely.


Source: VirusBuster