Protection from malware is a necessity, but don’t fall under the false assumption that malware protection will protect you from all forms of malware. Rootkits, which actually have been around for quite some time, are starting to make their name more public. But, just because rootkits are starting to become more mainstream doesn’t mean that malware signatures will protect your system from them.

Security experts now believe that trojan, spam and malware protection software cannot adequately prevent system compromise by increasingly sophisticated rootkits.

Rootkits are used to conceal the presence of trojans, hacker backdoors, and botnets by cloaking their files and processes through modifying the output of common operating system routines. They grant administrator access to a system after a hacker installs them typically through obtaining user level access by exploiting known vulnerabilities.

Intelligent Security Research Services analyst James Turner said rootkits will be increasingly used in highly targeted attacks as they become more sophisticated and form a critical part of hacker arsenals.

“We are going to see rootkits used in highly targeted attacks where hackers will source, for example, a CFO’s operating system and the typical applications they use, and then find a specific vulnerability based on these which allows a rootkit to be inserted,” Turner said.[more]

Tags: Malware