[pchelpers] Article:Microsoft Works to Infect Windows Machines with Worm-Updates

By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor
While it is the struggle of end users, members of the security industry
and ultimately Microsoft itself to keep malware off of the Windows
operating system, the Redmond company is preparing a 180-degree shift in
this strategy. In this context, Microsoft is proposing nothing less than
to put malicious code on the users' Windows machines. Essentially, the
company's research arm, the Cambridge Systems and Networking group at
Microsoft Research Cambridge, in the U.K., is building a strategy and a
system for infecting Windows computers with replicative code. The move
is the latest 

in a tradition of reinventing the wheel. Replicative code provides the
basis for a type of malware referred to as worms. However, Microsoft's
approach is to domesticate the malicious code to the point that it will
be used for update maintenance purposes. 

"Can automatic patching be effective and practical in containing worms?
Effective is meant to contain a worm to a small factor of the size of
the population of infected hosts at worm detection time. Practical is
meant that the frequency of client patch updates is reasonably small
(client patch updates at regular intervals of minutes may be acceptable,
while that of a fraction of second may not). We consider how effective
and practical is reactive patching to contain a typical, random scanning
worm. We show that already for the simple scanning strategy of random
scanning worms, automatic patching system is effective, only under a
lower bound on the patching rate (of the same order as the worm
infection rate) – other worm scanning strategies such as that of
topological worms would impose even more severe constraints," reads an
excerpt of Network Immunology, the project lead by Milan Vojnovic, a
researcher with systems and networks group at Microsoft Research,
Cambridge. 

More here:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Works-to-Infect-Windows-Machines-with-Worm-Updates-78915.shtml
-- 
John Durham
Site http://modecideas.com
Server hosted on Ubuntu 4.10
Good advice is like good paint. It only works when applied.



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