Presenter: Eugene Kaspersky of Kaspersky Labs

The room was packed for this one–standing room only. Eugene first
took us through the history of viruses in an effort to define who
writes them and why. He said the traditional viruses as we know them
are dead and we’re now seeing viruses for hire. The same trend that is
funding spyware is funding viruses; professional hacking.

Two trends he is most concerned about today; encryption of data for
extortion and also AV-evasion tactics such as polymorphism and false
sample subission to AV companies. In the past, attempts to decrypt
the data by security experts have proven relatively easy but in the
future this could easily change as the bad guys get smarter and more
effective.

Reasons that viruses have been so successful, according to Eugene
include the fact that there are increasingly more virus families,
which means there are more virus writers. There are also fewer arrests
of virus writers, which indicates current law enforcement tactics are
ineffective.

What are some of the things that can help stop the darkside?
According to Eugene;

1. Innovation in technology
2. An internet interpol
3. Stronger OS’s (Vista)

Unfortunately, he shut off the projector abruptly when his time was up
and I didn’t get all the things copied.

I was impressed with Eugene’s presenting style. He’s very likable and down to earth and the thick Russian accent makes me want to drink vodka and slink a kashlinkov over my shoulder.

There were two nuggets in this class and those were his two points of concern, neither of which the average sec manager can do a lick about beyond what we’re already doing. Okay, maybe we could get active and lobby for an Internet Interpol, if we agreed with such a beast, and I don’t.