Decoding the Malware Maze: Insights From a Threat Researcher

Oh the days when spam was the only concern for email security!

Our guest today is Chris Wakelin, a Senior Threat Researcher at Proofpoint. He recounts the era when email attachments were plain text, and the concept of malicious URLs had yet to become prevalent. Chris was a pioneer in implementing email security measures and recalled introducing Spam Assassin, an early open-source program for spam detection, at his university.

Chris emphasized his belief in not shipping emails into a black hole (where emails are never seen by humans and they do not return error but instead directing them to spam folders or rejecting them at the gateway.) He stressed the importance of precision in cybersecurity, a lesson learned from his mathematical background.

TIMESTAMPS
[5:00] First Spam Filtering Implementation
[6:00] Spam Assassin
[12:15] Differences between static/dynamic detections and various signatures
[14:00] Running the Sandbox
[19:00] Naming New Malware
[23:50] Best Practices

Resources mentioned:
LCG Kit Blog
TA 558 Blog
ET Open Rule Set

For more information, check out our website.