ESET Threat Blog

Just a quick note to draw your attention to a couple of new documents that have just become available.
"AMTSOlutely fabulous" (sorry – it seemed like a good idea when I wrote it…) is a review of what the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization has achieved so far and what it might achieve in the future. It's available … Read More…

ThreatSense.Net® is a form of distributed computing that for several years has supplemented and extended the capabilities of the ThreatSense® detection engine, which is the heart of the advanced heuristics that characterize ESET products. ThreatSense.Net® sends back information to the Virus Labs on both known and new threats. As well as tracking the prevalence of … Read More…

I just noticed a blog on "Security vendor’s “top-threat” list proof for their less-than-perfect performance?" at http://hype-free.blogspot.com/2010/01/security-vendors-top-threat-list-proof.html. The essential point seems to be that periodic virus detection statistics (like our monthly ThreatSense reports) are likely to be based in part on infections spotted on a protected machine when a signature/update is released that wasn't available … Read More…

As our December ThreatSense report (now available at http://www.eset.com/threat-center/threat_trends/Global_Threat_Trends_December_2009.pdf) was not only the last of the year but the last of the decade, it's rather longer and more detailed than usual, including a look back at the last 12 months. I suppose we could have gone back over the whole decade, but I have to … Read More…

We interrupt our – well, my - scheduled programming to bring to your attention an article in "The Register" that I think deserves your attention. I put up what was intended to be a brief pointer on the AVIEN blog (http://avien.net/blog/?p=253), but I found myself kind of warming to the subject, to the extent that I … Read More…

ESET released its Global Threat Report for the month of September, 2009, identifying the top ten threats seen during the month by ESET's ThreatSense.Net™ cloud.  You can view the report here and, as always, the complete collection is available here in the Threat Trends section of our web site.  While the report identifies a number … Read More…

I was passed a query from a journalist in the UK about Win32/Induc.A, the Delphi infector both Randy and I have blogged about previously, asking whether ESET has figures supporting my contention that this "harmless" malware actually has the potential to cause significant damage, as he had seen no reports of "even minor disruption."
While we … Read More…

Nowadays we see lots of malicious software that is designed to steal money and information. A new virus was recently discovered that seems to be all about proving a concept rather than blatant maliciousness.
The Win32/Induc.A virus does not infect like most viruses do. Delphi is a programming language. Induc infected the Delphi IDE so that … Read More…

Our July ThreatSense.Net® report has been released today, and will eventually be available from the Threat Center page here. Most of the top ten entries are old friends: well, familiar names might be a better way of putting it. One of the disadvantages of having a scanner that makes heavy use of advanced heuristics is … Read More…

We’ve just finished working on our monthly Threat Report. There aren’t many surprises in the top ten threats for June.
Conficker has taken over the "top spot", relegating INF/Autorun to second place. It’s difficult to say for sure what the significance is, given the relatively small percentage point involved: minor fluctuations in proportions from month … Read More…