The Evolution of Malware: From Invasion to Evasion
Dr. Giovanni Vigna
University of California, Santa Barbara
Thursday, November 13, 2014
11:00 a.m., 1000 SEO Building
Abstract: Heading link
Malware is in continuous evolution. As new analysis and detection techniques are deployed, cybercriminals adapt and create malware samples that can evade these defenses, sometimes radically shifting their focus from the machine to the user. The goals of these attackers evolve as well, and, in the recent past, we have witnessed a shift of focus from financial gains to strategic gains.
This talk describes the evolution of both binary and web-based malware, and describes several techniques to combat this ever-changing threat, focusing in particular on the detection of evasive behavior. As no one technique will ever be the silver bullet against malware, thinking about threat trajectories and what we might expect next can motivate new high-impact research directions.
Bio: Heading link
Giovanni Vigna is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California in Santa Barbara. His current research interests include malware analysis, web security, vulnerability assessment, and mobile phone security. He also edited a book on Security and Mobile Agents and authored one on Intrusion Correlation. He has been the Program Chair of the International Symposium on Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection (RAID 2003), of the ISOC Symposium on Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS 2009), and of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in 2011. He is known for organizing and running an inter-university Capture The Flag hacking contest, called iCTF, that every year involves dozens of institutions around the world.
Host: Venkat Venkatkrishnan