Malware vs. anti-malware, 20 years into the fray

jcatcw writes: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols considers the dissimilarities between maleware of yore and current infiltrations as we approach the 20th anniversary of the William Morris worm. Modern malware apps curl up and make themselves at home in your system, where they wait for a chance to snatch an important password or a credit card number. Welcome to the era of capitalist hacking. Any self-respecting malware program today is polymorphic, making signature-based av approaches difficult. Heuristics and virtual sandboxes offer alternatives, but all such methods are reactive. Unfortunately, montoring lists and networks is about the only current alternative.