Artificial Intelligence becoming best defense against ransomware

Click to read the full story: Artificial Intelligence becoming best defense against ransomware

In just two months, there have been two massive malware outbreaks that put computers around the world at risk with ransomware or malicious software that locks up photos and other files stored on your computer, then demands money to release them.

In May it was the WannaCry attack and this week, we were given the Petya ransomware that has ravaged systems again. The fact that two have it in only six weeks makes it impossible to protect nearly half a billion computers from this so Microsoft is including a major AI-powered powered defense update in the next big Windows 10 update.

It’s the next big evolution of Windows Defender, which has come a long, long way since it first started taking shape back in 2004. In 2017, an anti-malware app can’t get by on definition updates alone. Today, security software needs to be smarter. It needs to be able to watch what your computer is doing, to gather and interpret clues, and to use that information to determine when something malicious is going on and intervene before something disastrous happens.

Naturally, the data from one computer wouldn’t really give an anti-malware a lot to go on. Microsoft has a slightly larger pool to draw on, though: the collective intelligence gathered from 400 million or so Windows systems.

Microsoft’s Avi Sagiv says the “cloud-based security intelligence” shifts Windows users “from a world of isolated defenses to a smart, interconnected, and coordinated defense grid.” That “grid,” he notes, is “intelligent[…]and ever-changing,” which means it’s getting smarter all the time.

With the cloud-driven AI helping out, Microsoft will be able to act on suspicious activity like keylogging or, say, a macro in a Word document trying to download files from the Internet. Previously-unseen malware can be identified and neutralized faster than ever before.

Not even an AI backed by the power of half a billion Windows 10 computers will stop every new threat in its tracks… but it’s definitely going to make a big difference in the fight against malware. For those haven’t made the move to Windows 10 yet, the improved defenses arriving this fall ought to provide a strong incentive to do it.

It’s clear that the world needs better defenses, and fortunately, those are starting to emerge, if slowly and in patchwork fashion. When they arrive, we may have artificial intelligence to thank.

Ransomware isn’t necessary trickier or more dangerous than other malware that sneaks onto your computer, but it can be much more aggravating, and at times devastating. Most such infections don’t get in your face about taking your digital stuff away from you the way ransomware does, nor do they shake you down for hundreds of dollars or more.

Despite those risks, many people just aren’t good at keeping up with security software updates. Both recent ransomware attacks walloped those who failed to install a Windows update released a few months earlier.

Watchdog security software has its problems, too. With this week’s ransomware attack, only two of about 60 security services tested caught it at first, according to security researchers.

“A lot of normal applications, especially on Windows, behave like malware, and it’s hard to tell them apart,” said Ryan Kalember, an expert at the California security vendor Proofpoint.

HOW TO FIND MALWARE

In the early days, identifying malicious programs such as viruses involved matching their code against a database of known malware. But this technique was only as good as the database; new malware variants could easily slip through.

So security companies started characterizing malware by its behavior. In the case of ransomware, software could look for repeated attempts to lock files by encrypting them. But that can flag ordinary computer behavior such as file compression.

Newer techniques involve looking for combinations of behaviors. For instance, a program that starts encrypting files without showing a progress bar on the screen could be flagged for surreptitious activity, said Fabian Wosar, chief technology officer at the New Zealand security company Emsisoft. But that also risks identifying harmful software too late, after some files have already been locked up.

An even better approach identifies malware using observable characteristics usually associated with malicious intent – for instance, by quarantining a program disguised with a PDF icon to hide its true nature.

This sort of malware profiling wouldn’t rely on exact code matches so that it couldn’t be easily evaded. And such checks could be made well before potentially dangerous programs start running.

MACHINE VS. MACHINE

Still, two or three characteristics might not properly distinguish malware from legitimate software. But how about dozens? Or hundreds? Or even thousands?

For that, security researchers turn to machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence. The security system analyzes samples of good and bad software and figures out what combination of factors is likely to be present in malware.

As it encounters new software, the system calculates the probability that it’s malware, and rejects those that score above a certain threshold. When something gets through, it’s a matter of tweaking the calculations or adjusting the threshold. Now and then, researchers see a new behavior to teach the machine.

AN ARMS RACE

On the flip side, malware writers can obtain these security tools and tweak their code to see if they can evade detection. Some websites already offer to test software against leading security systems. Eventually, malware authors may start creating their own machine-learning models to defeat security-focused artificial intelligence.

Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer at the California vendor CrowdStrike, said that even if a particular system offers 99 percent protection, “it’s just a math problem of how many times you have to deviate your attack to get that 1 percent.”

Still, security companies employing machine learning have claimed success in blocking most malware, not just ransomware. SentinelOne even offers a $1 million guarantee against ransomware; it hasn’t had to pay it yet.

A FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGE

So why was ransomware still able to spread in recent weeks?

Garden-variety anti-virus software – even some of the free versions – can help block new forms of malware, as many are also incorporating behavioral-detection and machine-learning techniques. But such software still relies on malware databases that users aren’t typically good at keeping up to date.

Next-generation services such as CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, and Cylance tend to ditch databases completely in favor of machine learning.

But these services focus on corporate customers, charging $40 to $50 a year per computer. Smaller businesses often don’t have the budget – or the focus on security – for that kind of protection.

And forget consumers; these security companies aren’t selling to them yet. Though Cylance plans to release a consumer version in July, it says it’ll be a tough sell – at least until someone gets attacked personally or knows a friend or family member who has.

As Cylance CEO Stuart McClure puts it: “When you haven’t been hit with a tornado, why would you get tornado insurance?”

The post Artificial Intelligence becoming best defense against ransomware appeared first on Movie TV Tech Geeks News By: Jeffrey Lang