Math vs. Malware

I’ve been saying for years that the traditional methods of defending against malware are flawed and unsustainable. It’s a reactive security model in the first place–the bad guys always get the first move. With millions of new malware exploits and variants discovered every month the database of signatures required to detect and identify known threats is cumbersome. In the end, even in a best case scenario traditional anti-malware security is simply insufficient against many attacks.

There are innovative new approaches being introduced, however, that change the game and do a significantly better job of defending against attacks.

Here is an excerpt from a Cylance whitepaper that talks about its approach to creating next generation antivirus and security tools:

The problem—although few want to admit it—is that enterprise security personnel are defending a castle riddled with holes, flled with secret passageways, and protected by inefective barriers. These weak points are a consequence of poor quality security software, inferior hardware, and—in some cases—backdoors planted by malicious insiders. The end result is a begrudging acceptance that the attackers are winning the war.

Attacks are motivated by a variety of reasons, originate from various locales, and continue to evolve in complexity as technology progresses. As part of this evolution, modern threats commonly employ evasion techniques designed to bypass existing security measures. Simply detecting these advanced threats after the fact is hard enough, let alone protecting an entire organization against them beforehand.

What if there was a better way?
What if the castle could be defended?
What if the threat could be stopped long before the damage was done?