“White Worm” and Other Cutting-Edge Techniques to Fight Malware

Check out the most advanced security tactics in the fight against hackers for companies like yours.

One of the worst things about malware is that it never stays the same. There’s always a new threat, vulnerability, or revised virus cropping up. But there’s good news—A lot of innovation is happening in the world of cybersecurity Let’s take a look at some of the latest advances and how they can help businesses like yours in the fight against hackers.

The “White Worm” Approach

For a while now, universities in countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Russia have been studying the Mirai worm, an annoying piece of malware that crept into programs and wreaked havoc. However, security experts at these universities had a good idea—What if they could turn Mirai into a vaccine to use against similar types of worms?

It’s not exactly a new idea, but it is finally showing real-world success. The White Worm Project created a vaccine that uses Mirai-like capabilities to access devices and search for vulnerabilities. However, instead of exploiting those vulnerabilities, the new software (called AntibIoTic for its smart-device application) adds an extra security code instead. The code alerts device owners about potential problems and changes the authorization settings so malware can’t get in.

Additional white worms can be designed to shore up lagging security, warn users about new threats, preemptively protect devices, and more. The future of anti-malware is looking a lot better!

Advanced Machine Learning AI (Artificial Intelligence)

If you’ve kept up on the latest malware developments and security solutions, you’ve probably heard about machine learning and AI programs. Large security organizations are now using AI programs to identify aberrations. These aberrations are numerous and customizable, and focus on any out-of-the-ordinary activity from both software and account users. They indicate anything from malware attacks to identity theft, so the “AI approach” has very quickly become popular. If you receive threat intelligence reports from Microsoft Office 365, you’ve benefited from this technology.

The software adapts based on what it learns. For example, AI software might send 10 alerts to a security administrator. The administrator notes that five of these threats are false positives (ordinary activity that’s just a little unusual, but not threatening). The AI uses its machine-learning capabilities to include this information in its future scans—adding more accuracy over time to pinpoint the security problem.

VM Browsers

Browsers get hit with a lot of malware that can be challenging to block. One new solution that’s getting praise from security experts is a VM (virtual machine) browser approach. In this case, a business only allows browsers to be used when they’re opened in a virtual machine. A VM is created with each new browsing session. If malware manages to make it through the browser, it will get stuck in the VM and be destroyed when the browser session is complete. This approach is interesting because it also allows for the possibility of popular “security browsers” to be used at the professional level, a trend that’s just off the horizon.

Email Authentication

DMARC or Domain Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance is a term you can expect to hear frequently in the near future. It’s an email authentication standard that helps companies to secure their email (to prevent hackers from spoofing them for phishing attacks) and confirm the emails of others (to stop incoming phishing attacks). Customized authentication standards open the path to better and faster security for businesses worldwide.

Architectural Security

The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as a pervasive and ubiquitous network which enables monitoring and control of the physical environment by collecting, processing, and analyzing the data generated by sensors or smart objects. While many existing security technologies and solutions can be leveraged in a network architecture, there are unique challenges in the IoT space. Architectural security refers to how the Internet of Things is set up. It’s about designing and producing smart devices with security in mind – making them more difficult to access, and with communication features that decrease the likelihood of an attack.

Encrypted Detection

If you’ve attended any of the latest security conferences, you’ve probably heard talk about encrypted detection. However, encrypted data is hard to scan for signs of hacking. In the past security solutions had to unencrypt data and analyze it for threats, or just let the encrypted data pass and hope it didn’t include anything dangerous. Modern solutions have found ways to search for threats in encrypted data, without compromising its encryption. This is a big deal for companies that want to protect their data – especially wireless data –and should soon become standard once the last few wrinkles are ironed out.

Security as Development

During program development, security is often added on after the core workings of the program are already complete. This is problematic – it tends to create a lot more vulnerabilities. We’re finally seeing a concerted demand for developers to start including security aspects in their initial coding. This new standard could help secure many of the applications on the market.

Do you need help with data security for your business in Boston? The team at Radius Executive IT Solutions understands these challenges.  We’ll work with you to create a comprehensive security plan to protect your business from data breaches, malware or other cyber threats.  Contact our security professionals at (978) 528-0110 or info@radiusits.com to schedule your no-obligation consult.