The Social Graph of Malware

Malware is a generic term applied to forms of software intentionally designed to do undesirable things to your computer.

Bad things. And usually without your knowledge. The term includes trojans, root-kits, and viruses. They’re all designed to avoid detection, injecting themselves into your computer in order to gain control over that computer.

Malware, no matter what its form or whatever weakness it exploits, is always a program or script that must be executed on the computer that’s being infected. The vector or mechanism for transmission, and the way a target is tricked into executing the software, varies from one bit of malware to the next.

And so we explore the story and the study of how malware spreads. Like a bad flu.

The latest on Google in (2006) and maybe out of China (n 2010):

• The Life and Times of Google.cn

Stories from The Social Graph of Malware

• The Preconditions for the Rise of Malware
• Social Networks and the Graphing of Social Networks
• Early Viruses
• Why malware?
• How they spread (achoo)
• Social Engineering – the early days
• Social Engineering – gets automated
• Cheap Email tricks — How they get your email address and use it
• Targeted email attacks — DOC, PDF, etc.
• The Snooping Dragon – case study and report of malware targeting Tibetan exile supporters
• Twitter and URL-shorteners as potential attack vectors
• Mind Games continue – a bucket of recent articles and case studies
• Keeping your email private when you’re on a list
• Google.cn – again

Resources

• Social Graph Concepts and Issues
• Social network analysis (Wikipedia)
• A timeline of notable computer viruses and worms (Wikipedia)
• What’s trust got to do with it? (articles about trust, the Net, and malware)