Why Web Malware Is Like A Chameleon

February 1st, 2011 By: anirbansth

 (The Hosting News) -What is Web Malware: Web-based malware can be defined as malicious computer code, like viruses and trojans which infect websites in order to victimize unsuspecting web surfers. This kind of malware has been on the uptake since early 2007. Malicious hackers have found it hard to distribute malware via traditional means and have hit upon the weak link in the Internet food chain. They have realized that 90% of websites today have at least one major vulnerability which allows them to break into the website and infect it with web-based malware. Web-based malware is somewhat different from the usual slew of malware which infects PCs. This is so because malware deposited on websites, looks and acts in different manners than most strains of viruses. Consider the fact that more than 6,600 websites are compromised every single day.
How does it try to hide: Web-based malware uses a number of tricks to hide and stay under the radar while doing its nefarious deeds. We will look at two simple, but very effective techniques which have started becoming increasingly popular over the last few months.
Technique #1: Web-malware often tries to melt into benign and legitimate computer code by pretending to be benign computer code. An example of this can be found when malware tries to use code profiles, keywords, programming styles which mimic legitimate pieces of HTML, javascript, VBscript, PhP code. In fact in recent months we have seen an increase in the attempts of web-malware to pretending to be legitimate JQuery scripts. JQuery is a popular javascript framework which is used extensively on many websites. Web-malware authors are targeting this popular framework increasingly. If you host websites using JQuery, it is highly advisable to analyze your local JQuery installation and making sure that it is actually a legitimate copy. Live examples are present on our blog pages at Stopthehacker.com.
Technique #2: Another interesting trend that we have observed is web-malware trying to pretend to be software from well known Anti-Virus companies. Fake Anti-Virus malware is not anything new, however for web-malware to move in that direction is something relatively new. In fact we have found that web-malware is now trying to fake Norton Safeweb verification files. If you are hosting sites which sport a Norton Safeweb service, you might like to check the files which have the following pattern in their name: nortonsw_[uniquehashcode].txt. This attempt is to slip underneath the watchful eyes of an analyst/admin in the hopes that with a name like nortonsw, the admin will think its a file created by an Anti-Virus software and will not analyze it further.
What can you do:  As a hoster, you can keep your customer websites safer by taking advantage of new emerging, website “Health Monitoring” solutions. This kind of new technology, based on advanced AI and self-learning mechanisms can scan websites with minimum interruptions, is totally SaaS based and uses advanced machine learning to catch never-before-seen malware. This is a significant break from the way most traditional Anti-Virus software work. Cutting edge solutions like on-demand web scanning can help hosting companies identify rogue websites on their networks, protecting their reputation. It can also turn into a golden opportunity to increase recurring revenue and distinguish one’s self from the competition. For more details please get in touch with us at Stopthehacker.com .

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