Just to be clear, did you have MSSE and another anti-malware product installed and running on the same machine at the same time? I was under the impression this was not recommended and could cause issues with proper detection.

I'll also throw my experience with MSSE in there: When it was first released, it actually proved to be very effective at detection and removal of known malware, appeared to run with very little resources, and was cost effective (in ForeFront format) for business who had site licenses with MS as well as for home users. Overall it was a decent anti-malware product that I recommended for both home (MSSE) and work (ForeFront).

Fast forward a few years to now. MSSE is still pretty effective at detecting and removing the *well known* variants of malware and still does not use a lot of system resources that I have seen, and is still cost effective. The problem is that the malware field has changed drastically. We are seeing far more malware that MSSE/Forefront does not detect because the 'bad guys' have simple ways to make a slightly different variant that thwarts detection. Signature based detection can only get one so far (as has been said in a few other replies) and it is only possible when the signature can be made. When the malware kits allow you to generate a simple variant that MSSE and a few of the other major anti-malware software does not detect one has to rely on other means like heuristics, behavior, white/black listing, etc (when relying on client side software as a layer in the defense). I have not found MSSE v1 or v2 strong in anything but signature detection. I no longer recommend MSSE for home or work users because it's poor performance outside of signature based scanning.

As a fun test, try the following on a malware lab desktop/VM: Install your version of windows with MSSE - and make sure they are fully updated. Download a smattering of malware examples from one of the well known malware sites and see how many of them actually get past MSSE. In my tests, a good 50 to 60% install their payload without MSSE making a peep. Do the same, but this time remove MSSE and install an anti-malware tool like Kaspersky or BitDefender and see how it compares. In my tests the commercial products have done far better due to their faster updates of signatures, heuristic, and behavior analysis. Obviously it is not a scientific test, but effective enough for this example. FYI - Zeus variants always seemed to get by MSSE particularly effectively for me.

Glenn

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed] [mailto:listbounce (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]] On Behalf Of David Gillett
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2012 12:55 PM
To: security-basics (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]
Subject: RE: Malware detection

I encountered a rootkit last year. MSSE was the only thing I was running that detected it.

Unfortunately, it only detected it in a temporary folder belonging to a commercial antivirus product I was running (which did not itself notice the rootkit...). My theory is that something about the way the commercial product scanned archives caused one or more rootkit components to be extracted and become visible to MSSE. But of course this instance, while visible, was secondary, and so many many attempts by MSSE to "clean" the machine, including required reboots, never actually had an effect.
Several other packages I tried had no success in finding the malware, which eventually crippled the boot process so badly I had to reformat and reinstall from scratch.

(Since then, I've installed ZoneAlarm's new free antivirus. Too late to see if it could cope with that rootkit, but it did find and apparently neutralize many malware examples in a sizable email archive, which none of the previous candidates had noticed....

David Gillett
CISSP CCNP
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