Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
Kaspersky Says Cloud Computing May Reduce Malware
August 3, 2011
A recent report in eWeek.com caught my eye because Sensei does network security assessments and investigates data breaches. Kaspersky Lab reported that in 2007, 5 pieces of malware were released every two minutes. In 2010, it reported that 1 piece of malware was released every 2 seconds. It's no wonder that it is so hard to keep pace with the bad guys.
As the article notes, the criminals are motivated by money – and every time profits drop, they turn to something else. As an example, profits from mass spam have declined and the criminals are now turning to spearfishing (targeted attacks) which are more profitable.
Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, is a very smart guy (and we love Kaspersky's security products). While he acknowledges that there is no silver bullet for fighting spam, Kaspersky believes that cloud computing can actually assist in the fight against malware.
How? By severely limiting the lifecycle of the malware. Here's how he sees it: Once a piece of malware is detected, cloud security systems would analyze it and push out protection to the rest of the world. As more security products are updated quickly, it gets harder and harder to infect new machines so the window for making money grows very small very fast.
Will this put a stop to the true masterminds? Of course not – they will continue to write very sophisticated malware with differing signatures and morphing capabilities that will still cause headaches. But most malware is written by script kiddies and amateurs – and their efforts could be severely hampered by cloud-based security as Kaspersky describes it.
We hope his prophecy comes true.
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