The Worldwide Malware Signature Counter – A One Year Report Card

About a year ago we had the idea of the Worldwide Malware Signature Counter as a graphical representation of how the reliance on previous knowledge of attacks for detection was no longer a serviceable approach for protecting endpoint machines.  Much of the actual data used to build the math behind the filter (yes, it has thoughtfully constructed, sound mathematical principles behind it) was taken from the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR).  Since Symantec just released the annual update to that report, it seemed an appropriate time to look back at the counter and see how well our analysis held up a year later.

All things considered, the counter was remarkably accurate.  Charting both the year-over-year and cumulative signature counts through 2008, we concluded that new signatures were growing at 60% of the cumulative rate on an annual basis.  This proved to be a bit aggressive, as Symantec’s actual numbers showed 2009 growth to be 51% of the cumulative number, or just under 2.9M new signatures.   But because we conceived the counter to be instructional and not hyperbole, we built the calculations on the conservative side and the counter in fact lagged just slightly behind the actual numbers reported by Symantec throughout the year and eventually in the ISTR.

When I first did the math on the numbers from the ISTR in 2009, I was struck on how the signature numbers broke down as a practical drag on the resources of the AV companies.   Of course a 51% increase year-over-year only exacerbates the problem.  Using the numbers from the recent ISTR, that burden translates to 241,316 signatures per month, roughly 7,934 signatures per day, 5.5 signatures per minute, and ultimately one signature every 12 seconds.  It is a model that is simply not sustainable, and by every indication, it will only get worse.

The bigger question after a year is “so what?”.  Well, the language from the AV vendors has certainly changed.  In fact, the following is a direct quote from the Symantec document:

Signature-based detection is lagging behind the creation of malicious threats—something which makes newer antivirus technologies and techniques, such as behavioral-based detection, increasingly important. …. This trend suggests that security technologies that rely on signatures should be complemented with additional heuristics, behavioral monitoring techniques, and reputation-based security. (page 48, Symantec Global Internet Threat Report – Trends for 2009,  Volume XV, Published April 2010)

During his keynote at this year’s RSA, Symantec CEO’s Enrique Salem was quoted as saying “Traditional signature-based approaches to security are not keeping up.”  Of course, such admissions are directly colored by the alternative technologies the AV companies recently introduced to the market after ignoring calls from the rest of the industry for alternative detection methods.  But at least they have stepped away from their defense of signature based AV in the face of all evidence to the contrary.  I am not claiming they were driven to such mea culpa’s by our signature counter, but I do think we helped point out the issue.

Unfortunately, while organizations have also come to terms with the limitations of signature based AV, many are adopting the alternatives provided by the AV vendors instead of looking to more promising technologies.  Symantec brought Quorum to the market, so reputation based security is their answer.  McAfee bought a whitelisting technology so – surprise! – whitelisting is their answer.  I guess I was hoping that organizations would see the past the entrenched vendors for alternatives given that these vendors were so slow to come to terms with the signature problem, but factors such as risk avoidance have suppressed some innovative alternatives from getting play.

Meanwhile, the counter continues to increment, and recently passed 7 million signatures on pace to add over 4 million signatures for 2010.  I was recently asked if we planned on retiring the counter given the shift in sentiment toward signature based AV.  We still see enough executives and security people that don’t yet understand the problem, so the counter will live on to help us make the point.

So in regards to a grade, how about an gold star for creativity, an “A” for the math, and an “I” (incomplete) for changing the world.