Skip to content

Good Viruses. Evaluating the Risks

Igor Muttik

Igor Muttik details dEF CON 16 - Igor Muttik: Good Viruses.

Summary

Architecture and Background

DEF CON 16 - Igor Muttik: Good Viruses. Evaluating the Risks. This session will discuss the risks associated with creation of replicating code. A combination of wide availability of virus source code as well as the problem of control over replicating code make these experiments quite risky.

Vulnerability Analysis

To demonstrate these points we shall see how a computer virus was once created unintentionally in a self-modifying tool called ALREADY.COM (we'll disassemble and debug it). We shall watch a video of the "Corrupted blood" epidemic in World of Warcraft when a virtual "good" virus got out of control. We will examine "beneficial" properties of W32/Nachi worm and discuss pros and cons of harnessing replication for patching vulnerabilities. Dr.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Igor Muttik graduated from Moscow State University in 1985. His Ph.D. in 1989 was based on the research of semi- and super-conductors. He became interested in computer viruses in 1987 when PCs in the lab were infected with Cascade.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

In 1995 he joined Dr.Solomon's Software in the UK as a Virus Researcher. In 1999 he headed Avert in Europe and now is Senior Avert Labs Architect. He speaks regularly at security conferences. For copies of the slides and additional materials please see the DEF CON 16 Archive here:

Related talks

Main Stage·1 hr 54 min

  • DEF CON
  • ICS / OT
  • Date: Aug 2008
  • Location: Las Vegas

Workshop

Workshop details workshop: Davix Workshop Need help understanding your gigabytes of application logs or network captures.

emergency-systemscritical-infrastructuretelecommunications+1

Main Stage·48 min

  • DEF CON
  • ICS / OT
  • Date: Aug 2008
  • Location: Las Vegas

Valsmith · Colin Ames

Valsmith and Colin Ames explores metapost-exploitation at DEF CON 16, examining emergency-systems and practical defenses.

emergency-systemscritical-infrastructuretelecommunications+1