According to the virus prevalence table published in the June issue of the British "Virus Bulletin" magazine (www.virusbtn.com http://www.virusbtn.com) - one of the most authoritative publications for computer virus countermeasures - virus incidents caused by the "KakWorm", originally discovered at the end of last year, are still being registered.
This type of virus is created using script programming language (Java Script etc.). Script-programs (including script-viruses) are available in primary source code, which can easily be modified to produce new variations. It is really not difficult to modify these viruses to reformat disks or even crash micro chips.
The commonly available anti-virus scanners (on-demand scanners) are ineffectual against these viruses - once the computer is "cleaned" it can be re-infected merely by reading an infected message. Moreover background anti-virus monitors (on-access scanners), useful for detecting the virus when it writes its code to the disk, are also unable to prevent activation of the script-virus, since the viruses are executed directly into the operating memory without any trace on the disk.
Thus anti-virus developers have been forced to conceive a new generation of software to protect against "KakWorm"-style script-viruses Without this new-generation software, the "KakWorm"-style script-virus is able to do enormous damage (backdoor activities, installation of third-party malware etc.) prior to being detected (when it writes data to the disk). It is only then, when it is too late, that most anti-virus software will detect the virus.
Enter Kaspersky Lab's unique product AVP Script Checker - the new generation anti-virus software to combat against such script-viruses.
This program acts as a filter between the script program (irrespective of whether it is malicious or not) and the script program's processor that executes it. AVP Script Checker intercepts the script program in the operating memory before it is executed by the processor and sends it for checking to an on-access scanner AVP Monitor. If AVP Monitor detects the viruses it will block the program and alerts the user. If it detects nothing suspicious it returns the program back to AVP Script Checker, which then activates its powerful built-in heuristic analyser and checks for unknown viruses. If there is anything suspicious, it alerts the user and prevents the program from being executed. Only once the program has successfully passed all the tests can it be executed and proceed to the script programs processor
AVP Script Checker can also be used on any PC-compatible computers even if there is no AVP Monitor installed. In this case all the script-programs will be checked by the built-in heuristic analyser only.
"It is very important to note that AVP Script Checker is extremely useful not only against "KakWorm"-style script viruses but against all types of script-viruses. During the recent "LoveLetter" epidemic the product successfully detected 100% of all the variations of this virus without necessitating any additional updates to the anti-virus database", - said Eugene Kaspersky.
AVP Script Checker is available FREE of charge until 01 July. You can download the program from the Kaspersky Lab web site at :www.kasperskylab. ru/go/avp_scriptchecker/avpscrch.exe
Share
