Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing

Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing
Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2006-03-03

A virus that spreads from PCs to mobile devices has become the focus of a power play between the antivirus industry and the relatively young Mobile Antivirus Research Association, which obtained the only sample of the program.

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Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-03
Jay C. James (1 replies)

Author didnt discuss any of the MARA individuals that the community may be aware of. This is kinda important :)...

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Re: Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-04
Anonymous (1 replies)

He mentioned Cyrus Peikari, the security book author....?...

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Re: Re: Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-09
Anonymous (1 replies)

Who is not really known in Anti-Virus community.

Except by description avoid that guy, he has connections to virus writers....

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Re: Re: Re: Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-13
Anonymous

Many AV vendors have connections to the Virii underground. And many security firms hire black hatters. It's a well known secret in the industry....

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Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-04
Honest and fair reporting...

Thanks for the honest report on this. Others have not been very honest. According to one other article, Cluley stated "Some of Fogie's and Peikari's articles have also been posted on an underground virus exchange site, Vx Heavens, said Cluley."

I found this very funny because Peter Szor, Sarah Go...

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AV industry against full disclosure 2006-03-04
Anonymous (2 replies)

The AV industry has been against Full Disclosure from the beginning. Even responsible diasclosure....

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Re: AV industry against full disclosure 2006-03-06
Anonymous

I agree with you on AV firms, along with most software companies, not wanting on board with full disclosure. However, it doesn't appear that MARA has full disclosure as its number one objective either. What is there to gain by holding the code from the AV vendors? Personally I think their reasoni...

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Re: AV industry against full disclosure 2006-03-06
kurt (1 replies)

the AV industry is against *public* disclosure of viral materials, and for good reason... full disclosure of viral materials is not comparable to full disclosure of conventional vulnerabilities - conventional vulnerabilities are mistakes that can be fixed and learned from, whereas virus infectabilit...

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Re: Re: AV industry against full disclosure 2006-03-07
Anonymous (1 replies)

Well every major worm (such as code red) recently has followed shortly after a vulneralbility was announced by eEye, etc. So there really is no difference.

So if you are against full disclosure (or near-full disclosure) in AV, then you are against full disclosure in general security as well.

W...

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Re: Re: Re: AV industry against full disclosure 2006-03-09
kurt (1 replies)

i am in no way against full disclosure of conventional vulnerabilities - the fact that *some* viruses and worms have dependencies on specific vulnerabilities is a non-sequitur... it's entirely possible (and happens in practice) to follow full disclosure for the vulnerability without disclosing the w...

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Re: Re: Re: Re: AV industry against full disclosure 2006-03-12
Anonymous (1 replies)

But what about viral code that is already in the public domain? The underground already has it on a thousand Internet mirrors. Isn't it better to publish defensive commentary along side the code, so that professionals can help protect against it?

Publishing an academic anlaysis of viral code is p...

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: AV industry against full disclosure 2006-03-14
kurt wismer

what about viral code that's already in the public domain? if you see litter on the street do you add to it? just because it's 'out there' doesn't mean everyone who wants it has it... why raise it's search profile? why make it easier for the wrong people to find? why contribute to that problem?

w...

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Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-07
Anonymous (2 replies)

http://www.mobileav.org/html/how_to_join_us.html

"In lieu of a paper, submit a new, previously unknown mobile malware binary, along with a description of how you reversed engineered it."

So, if you want to become member (and looking at the member-list, who doesn't....) you should first write y...

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Re: Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-07
Anonymous

I believe that refers to analysis written by AV company experts only....

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Re: Antivirus groups fight over Crossover sharing 2006-03-08
Anonymous

I suggest you go back to school and learn to read. It says reverse engineered. I am pretty sure that MARA are not interested in having malware authors join. ...

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