The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense':
Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
The preface states that the book is a compilation of research over a
fifteen year period. While it is not explicitly stated, Szor seems to
indicate that the primary audience for the work consists of those
professionally engaged in the field of malware research and
protection. (He also admits that his writing might be a little rough,
which is true. While his text is not particularly unclear, it is
frequently disjointed, and often appears incomplete or jumpy.
Illustrations are frequently less than helpful, although this can't be
attributed to a lock of command of English.) Given the stature of
people he lists in the acknowledgements one can hope for good quality
in the technical information.
Part one deals with the strategies of the attacker. Chapter one
describes games and studies of natural ecologies relevant to computer
viruses, as well as the early history (and even pre-history) or these
programs. I could cavil that he misses some points (such as the
1980-81 Apple virus programs at two universities in Texas), or glosses
over some important events (such as Shoch and Hupp's worm experiments
at Xerox PARC), but the background is much better and broader than in
most chronicles. The beginnings of malicious code analysis is
provided in chapter two, although it concentrates on a glossary of
malware types (albeit incomplete and not always universally agreed)
and the CARO (Computer Antivirus Research Organization) naming
convention. The environment in which viruses operate, particularly
hardware and operating system platform dependencies, is reviewed in
chapter three. This material is much more detailed than that given in
any other virus related text. (Dependencies missing from the list
seems to be those that utilize protective software itself, such as the
old virus that used a function of the Thunderbyte antivirus to spread,
or the more recent Witty worm, targeted at the BlackIce firewall.
Companion viruses utilizing precedence priorities would seem to be
related to operating system functions, but are not included in that
section.) Unfortunately, the content will not be of direct and
immediate use, since it primarily points out issues and relies on the
reader's background to understand how to deal with the problems, but
nonetheless the material is fascinating and the inventory impressive.
Chapter four outlines infection strategies and is likewise
comprehensive. Memory use and infection strategies are described in
chapter five. The issue of viral self-protection; tactics to avoid
detection and elimination; are given in chapter six. Chapter seven
reviews variations on the theme of polymorphism, and also catalogues
some of the virus generation kits. Payloads types are enumerated in
chapter eight. Oddly, botnets are mentioned neither here, nor in the
material on worms, in chapter nine. (Szor's use of a modified
Cohenesque definition of a virus as infecting files means that some of
the items listed in this section are what would otherwise be called
email viruses. His usage is not always consistent, as in the earlier
mention of script viruses on page 81.) "Exploits," in chapter ten,
covers a multitude of software vulnerabilities that might be used by a
variety of malware categories for a diverse purposes. This content is
also some of the best that I've seen dealing with the matter of
software vulnerabilities, and would be well recommended to those
interested in building secure applications.
Part two moves into the area of defence. Chapter eleven describes the
basic types of antiviral or antimalware programs, concentrating
primarily on various forms of scanning, although change detection and
activity monitoring and restriction are mentioned. It is often
desireable to find and disable malware in memory. The means of doing
so, particularly in the hiding-place riddled Win32 system, are
described in chapter twelve. Means of blocking worm attacks are
discussed in chapter thirteen, although most appear to be either forms
of application proxy firewalling, or (somewhat ironically) activity
monitoring. Chapter fourteen lists generic network protection
mechanisms, such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems,
although the section on the use of network sniffers to capture memory-
only worms is intriguing. Software analysis, and the tools therefore,
is covered in chapter fifteen, emphasizing functional aspects of the
malware. Chapter sixteen concludes with a register of Websites for
further study and reference.
For those involved in malware research, Szor's book is easily the best
since Ferbrache's "A Pathology of Computer Viruses" . It contains a wealth of information found nowhere else
in book form. On the other hand, it is demanding of the reader, both
in terms of the often uneven writing style, and the background
knowledge of computer internals and programming that is required. The
text does not provide material that would be suitable for general
protection of computer systems and networks. On the other hand,
intelligent amateur students of malicious software will find much to
reward their investigation of this book.
copyright Robert M. Slade, 2005
Add my review for The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense
Book description:
Preface Preface Who Should Read This Book Over the last two decades, several publications appeared on the subject of computer viruses, but only a few have been written by professionals ("insiders") of computer virus research. Although many books exist that discuss the computer virus problem, they usually target a novice audience and are simply not too interesting for the technical professionals. There are only a few works that have no worries going into the technical details, necessary to understand, to effectively defend against computer viruses. Part of the problem is that existing books have little if any information about the current complexity of computer viruses. For example, they lack serious technical information on fast-spreading computer worms that exploit vulnerabilities to invade target systems, or they do not discuss recent code evolution techniques such as code metamorphism. If you wanted to get all the information I have in this book, you would need to spend a lot of time reading articles and papers that are often hidden somewhere deep inside computer virus and security conference proceedings, and perhaps you would need to dig into malicious code for years to extract the relevant details. I believe that this book is most useful for IT and security professionals who fight against computer viruses on a daily basis. Nowadays, system administrators as well as individual home users often need to deal with computer worms and other malicious programs on their networks. Unfortunately, security courses have very little training on computer virus protection, and the general public knows very little about how to analyze and defend their network from such attacks. To make things more difficult, computer virus analysis techniques have not been discussed in any existing works in sufficient length before. I also think that, for anybody interested in information security, being aware of what the computer virus writers have "achieved" so far is an important thing to know. For years, computer virus researchers used to be "file" or "infected object" oriented. To the contrary, security professionals were excited about suspicious events only on the network level. In addition, threats such as CodeRed worm appeared to inject their code into the memory of vulnerable processes over the network, but did not "infect" objects on the disk. Today, it is important to understand all of these major perspectives the file (storage), in-memory, and network views and correlate the events using malicious code analysis techniques. During the years, I have trained many computer virus and security analysts to effectively analyze and respond to malicious code threats. In this book, I have included information about anything that I ever had to deal with. For example, I have relevant examples of ancient threats, such as 8-bit viruses on the Commodore 64. You will see that techniques such as stealth technology appeared in the earliest computer viruses, and on a variety of platforms. Thus, you will be able to realize that current rootkits do not represent anything new! You will find sufficient coverage on 32-bit Windows worm threats with in-depth exploit discussions, as well as 64-bit viruses and "pocket monsters" on mobile devices. All along the way, my goal is to illustrate how old techniques "reincarnate" in new threats and demonstrate up-to-date attacks with just enough technical details. I am sure that many of you are interested in joining the fight against malicious code, and perhaps, just like me, some of you will become inventors of defense techniques. All of you should, however, be aware of the pitfalls and the challenges of this field! That is what this book is all about. What I Cover The purpose of this book is to demonstrate the current state of the art of computer virus and antivirus developments and to teach you the methodology of computer virus analysis and protection. I discuss infection techniques of computer viruses from all possible perspectives: file (on storage), in-memory, and network. I classify and tell you all about the dirty little tricks of computer viruses that bad guys developed over the last two decades and tell you what has been done to deal with complexities such as code polymorphism and exploits. The easiest way to read this book is, well, to read it from chapter to chapter. However, some of the attack chapters have content that can be more relevant after understanding techniques presented in the defense chapters. If you feel that any of the chapters are not your taste, or are too difficult or lengthy, you can always jump to the next chapter. I am sure that everybody will find some parts of this book very difficult and other parts very simple, depending on individual experience. I expect my readers to be familiar with technology and some level of programming. There are so many things discussed in this book that it is simply impossible to cover everything in sufficient length. However, you will know exactly what you might need to learn from elsewhere to be absolutely successful against malicious threats. To help you, I have created an extensive reference list for each chapter that leads you to the necessary background information. Indeed, this book could easily have been over 1,000 pages. However, as you can tell, I am not Shakespeare. My knowledge of computer viruses is great, not my English. Most likely, you would have no benefit of my work if this were the other way around. What I Do Not Cover I do not cover Trojan horse programs or backdoors in great length. This book is primarily about self-replicating malicious code. There are plenty of great books available on regular malicious programs, but not on computer viruses. I do not present any virus code in the book that you could directly use to build another virus. This book is not a "virus writing" class. My understanding, however, is that the bad guys already know about most of the techniques that I discuss in this book. So, the good guys need to learn more and start to think (but not act) like a real attacker to develop their defense! Interestingly, many universities attempt to teach computer virus research courses by offering classes on writing viruses. Would it really help if a student could write a virus to infect millions of systems around the world? Will such students know more about how to develop defense better? Simply, the answer is no... Instead, classes should focus on the analysis of existing malicious threats. There are so many threats out there waiting for somebody to understand them and do something against them. Of course, the knowledge of computer viruses is like the "Force" in Star Wars . Depending on the user of the "Force," the knowledge can turn to good or evil. I cannot force you to stay away from the "Dark Side," but I urge you to do so. /> class="navigation"> Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved. From the Back Cover
"Of all the computer-related books I've read recently, this one influenced my thoughts about security the most. There is very little trustworthy information about computer viruses. Peter Szor is one of the best virus analysts in the world and has the perfect credentials to write this book."—Halvar Flake, Reverse Engineer, SABRE Security GmbH Symantec's chief antivirus researcher has written the definitive guide to contemporary virus threats, defense techniques, and analysis tools. Unlike most books on computer viruses, The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense is a reference written strictly for white hats: IT and security professionals responsible for protecting their organizations against malware. Peter Szor systematically covers everything you need to know, including virus behavior and classification, protection strategies, antivirus and worm-blocking techniques, and much more. Szor presents the state-of-the-art in both malware and protection, providing the full technical detail that professionals need to handle increasingly complex attacks. Along the way, he provides extensive information on code metamorphism and other emerging techniques, so you can anticipate and prepare for future threats. Szor also offers the most thorough and practical primer on virus analysis ever published—addressing everything from creating your own personal laboratory to automating the analysis process. This book's coverage includes * Discovering how malicious code attacks on a variety of platforms * Classifying malware strategies for infection, in-memory operation, self-protection, payload delivery, exploitation, and more * Identifying and responding to code obfuscation threats: encrypted, polymorphic, and metamorphic * Mastering empirical methods for analyzing malicious code—and what to do with what you learn * Reverse-engineering malicious code with disassemblers, debuggers, emulators, and virtual machines * Implementing technical defenses: scanning, code emulation, disinfection, inoculation, integrity checking, sandboxing, honeypots, behavior blocking, and much more * Using worm blocking, host-based intrusion prevention, and network-level defense strategies © Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
About the Author
The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense Peter Szor is security architect for Symantec Security Response, where has been designing and building anti-virus technologies for the Norton AntiVirus product line since 1999. From 1990 to 1995, Szor wrote and maintained his own antivirus program, Pasteur. A renowned computer virus and security researcher, Szor speaks frequently at the Virus Bulletin, EICAR, ICSA, and RSA conferences, as well as the USENIX Security Symposium. He currently serves on the advisory board of Virus Bulletin Magazine, and is founding member of the AVED (AntiVirus Emergency Discussion) network. © Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PrefacePrefaceWho Should Read This Book Over the last two decades, several publications appeared on the subject of computer viruses, but only a few have been written by professionals ("insiders") of computer virus research. Although many books exist that discuss the computer virus problem, they usually target a novice audience and are simply not too interesting for the technical professionals. There are only a few works that have no worries going into the technical details, necessary to understand, to effectively defend against computer viruses. Part of the problem is that existing books have little—if any—information about the current complexity of computer viruses. For example, they lack serious technical information on fast-spreading computer worms that exploit vulnerabilities to invade target systems, or they do not discuss recent code evolution techniques such as code metamorphism. If you wanted to get all the information I have in this book, you would need to spend a lot of time reading articles and papers that are often hidden somewhere deep inside computer virus and security conference proceedings, and perhaps you would need to dig into malicious code for years to extract the relevant details. I believe that this book is most useful for IT and security professionals who fight against computer viruses on a daily basis. Nowadays, system administrators as well as individual home users often need to deal with computer worms and other malicious programs on their networks. Unfortunately, security courses have very little training on computer virus protection, and the general public knows very little about how to analyze and defend their network from such attacks. To make things more difficult, computer virus analysis techniques have not been discussed in any existing works in sufficient length before. I also think that, for anybody interested in information security, being aware of what the computer virus writers have "achieved" so far is an important thing to know. For years, computer virus researchers used to be "file" or "infected object" oriented. To the contrary, security professionals were excited about suspicious events only on the network level. In addition, threats such as CodeRed worm appeared to inject their code into the memory of vulnerable processes over the network, but did not "infect" objects on the disk. Today, it is important to understand all of these major perspectives—the file (storage), in-memory, and network views—and correlate the events using malicious code analysis techniques. During the years, I have trained many computer virus and security analysts to effectively analyze and respond to malicious code threats. In this book, I have included information about anything that I ever had to deal with. For example, I have relevant examples of ancient threats, such as 8-bit viruses on the Commodore 64. You will see that techniques such as stealth technology appeared in the earliest computer viruses, and on a variety of platforms. Thus, you will be able to realize that current rootkits do not represent anything new! You will find sufficient coverage on 32-bit Windows worm threats with in-depth exploit discussions, as well as 64-bit viruses and "pocket monsters" on mobile devices. All along the way, my goal is to illustrate how old techniques "reincarnate" in new threats and demonstrate up-to-date attacks with just enough technical details. I am sure that many of you are interested in joining the fight against malicious code, and perhaps, just like me, some of you will become inventors of defense techniques. All of you should, however, be aware of the pitfalls and the challenges of this field! That is what this book is all about.What I Cover The purpose of this book is to demonstrate the current state of the art of computer virus and antivirus developments and to teach you the methodology of computer virus analysis and protection. I discuss infection techniques of computer viruses from all possible perspectives: file (on storage), in-memory, and network. I classify and tell you all about the dirty little tricks of computer viruses that bad guys developed over the last two decades and tell you what has been done to deal with complexities such as code polymorphism and exploits. The easiest way to read this book is, well, to read it from chapter to chapter. However, some of the attack chapters have content that can be more relevant after understanding techniques presented in the defense chapters. If you feel that any of the chapters are not your taste, or are too difficult or lengthy, you can always jump to the next chapter. I am sure that everybody will find some parts of this book very difficult and other parts very simple, depending on individual experience. I expect my readers to be familiar with technology and some level of programming. There are so many things discussed in this book that it is simply impossible to cover everything in sufficient length. However, you will know exactly what you might need to learn from elsewhere to be absolutely successful against malicious threats. To help you, I have created an extensive reference list for each chapter that leads you to the necessary background information. Indeed, this book could easily have been over 1,000 pages. However, as you can tell, I am not Shakespeare. My knowledge of computer viruses is great, not my English. Most likely, you would have no benefit of my work if this were the other way around.What I Do Not Cover I do not cover Trojan horse programs or backdoors in great length. This book is primarily about self-replicating malicious code. There are plenty of great books available on regular malicious programs, but not on computer viruses. I do not present any virus code in the book that you could directly use to build another virus. This book is not a "virus writing" class. My understanding, however, is that the bad guys already know about most of the techniques that I discuss in this book. So, the good guys need to learn more and start to think (but not act) like a real attacker to develop their defense! Interestingly, many universities attempt to teach computer virus research courses by offering classes on writing viruses. Would it really help if a student could write a virus to infect millions of systems around the world? Will such students know more about how to develop defense better? Simply, the answer is no... Instead, classes should focus on the analysis of existing malicious threats. There are so many threats out there waiting for somebody to understand them—and do something against them. Of course, the knowledge of computer viruses is like the "Force" in Star Wars. Depending on the user of the "Force," the knowledge can turn to good or evil. I cannot force you to stay away from the "Dark Side," but I urge you to do so.© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
