North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Clueless anti-virus products/vendors

  • From: Florian Weimer
  • Date: Wed Dec 07 07:57:50 2005 
* Steven M. Bellovin:

> A-V companies are in the business of analyzing viruses.

Many offer analysis services, but this is done upon special request,
and only if you pay extra.

> They should *know* how a particular virus behaves.

You don't need to know what the virus does in order to detect it with
a file-based signature.  Analysis stops as soon as detection is
possible with sufficient accuracy.  Timebombs and other hidden
functionality go unnoticed (unless the malware is form a well-known
strain which has such features).