Everything is "dirty" again when AV sw restarts.-----Original Message-----hch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;
From: malware-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:malware-list-
bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Zijlstra
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 6:37 AM
To: Helge Hafting
Cc: linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; malware-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
andi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; viro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Arjan van
de Ven
Subject: Re: [malware-list] TALPA - a threat model? well sorta.
On Fri, 2008-08-15 at 12:07 +0200, Helge Hafting wrote:
It seems to me that this "scan on file open" business is the
wrong way to do things - because it reduces performance.
If you scan on file open, then your security sw is too late and
getting in the way.
The problem is that you have to account for the cases where the malware
made it onto the system even if you were trying to catch it ahead of
time. For example:
- Administrator turns off or reduces AV protection for some reason for
some period of time. It happens all the time.
- New infection makes it onto the machine before the signatures haveAnd when new signatures arrive, everything is dirty again. Well, you can optimize
caught up with it. This also happens. There is an ongoing PR race
among AV vendors about who was faster on the draw to get out signatures
to detect some new malware. The fact that this race exists reflects
that reality that there is some window during which new malware will
make it onto some number of machines before the scanners catch up.