Dmitry Gryaznov
Proceedings of the Fifth International Virus Bulletin Conference, pp.225-234
1999

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1. Why scanners
2. Why heuristics

Introduction

At the beginning of 1994 the number of known MS-DOS viruses was estimated at around 3,000. One year later, in January 1995, the number of viruses was estimated at about 6,000. By the time this paper is being written (July 1995), the number of the known viruses has exceeded 7,000. Several anti-virus experts expect the number of viruses to reach 10,000 by the end of the year 1995. This big number of viruses, which keeps growing fast, is known as glut problem and it does cause problems to anti-virus software, especially to scanners.Today scanners are the most often used kind of anti-virus software. Fast growing number of viruses means that scanners should be updated frequently enough to cover new viruses. Also, as the number of viruses grows, so does the size of scanner or its database. And in some implementations the scanning speed suffers.

It was always very tempting to find an ultimate solution to the problem, to create a generic scanner, which can detect new viruses automatically, without need to update its code and/or database. Unfortunately, as it was proved by Fred Cohen, the problem of distinguishing a virus from a non-virus program is algorithmically unsolvable in general case.

Nevertheless, some generic detection is still possible. It is based on analysing a program for features typical or not typical for viruses. The set of features, possibly together with a set of rules, is known as heuristics. Today more and more anti-virus software developers are looking towards heuristic analysis as at least a partial solution to the glut problem.

Working at the Virus lab, S&S International PLC, the author is also carrying out a research project on heuristic analysis. The article explains what heuristics are. Positive and negative heuristics are introduced. Some practical heuristics are represented. Different approaches to a heuristic program analysis are discussed. False alarms problem pointed and discussed. Several well-known scanners employing heuristics are compared (without naming the scanners) in both the virus detection rate and false alarms rate.

1. Why scanners

If you are following computer virus related publications, such as proceedings of anti-virus conferences, magazines' reviews, anti-virus software manufacturers press releases, you read and hear mainly 'scanners, scanners, scanners'. An average user might even get an impression there is no anti-virus software other than scanners. This is not true. There are other methods of fighting computer viruses. But they are not that much popular and well known as scanners are. And anti-virus packages based on non-scanners technology do not sell well. So that sometimes people, who are trying to promote non-scanner based anti-virus software even come to conclusion there must be some kind of an international plot of popular anti-virus scanners producers. Why is it so? Let us briefly discuss existing types of anti-virus software. Those interested in more detailed discussion and comparison of different types of anti-virus software can find it in [Bontchev1], for example.

1.1. Scanners

So, what is a scanner? Simplifying, a scanner is a program which searches files and disk sectors for byte sequences specific to this or that known virus. Those byte sequences are often called virus signatures. There are many different ways to implement a scanning technique: from so called dumb or grunt scanning of the whole file to sophisticated virus-specific methods of deciding which particular part of the file should be compared to a virus signature.

Nevertheless, one thing is common to all the scanners: they can detect only known viruses. That is, viruses which were disassembled or analysed this or that way and from which virus signatures unique to a specific virus were selected. In most cases a scanner cannot detect a brand new virus until the virus is passed to the scanner developer who then extracts an appropriate virus signature and updates the scanner. This all takes time. And new viruses appear virtually every day. This means, scanners have to be updated frequently to provide an adequate anti-virus protection. A version of a scanner which was very good half a year ago might have become no good today if you got hit by just one of the several thousands new viruses appeared since the version was released.

So, are there any other ways to detect viruses? Are there any other anti-virus programs which do not depend so heavily on certain virus signatures and thus might be able to detect even new viruses? The answer is - yes, there are: integrity checkers and behaviour blockers (monitors). These types of anti-virus software are almost as old as scanners and are known to specialists for ages. Why are they not used so widely the scanners are then?

1.2. Behaviour blockers

A behaviour blocker (or a monitor) is a memory-resident (TSR) program which monitors system activity and looks for virus-like behaviour. In order to replicate a virus needs to create a copy of itself at this or that point. Most often viruses modify existing executable files to achieve this. So, in most cases behaviour blockers try to intercept system requests which lead to modifying executable files. When such or another suspicious request is intercepted, a behaviour blocker typically alerts a user and, based on the user's decision, can prohibit such a request from being executed. This way a behaviour blocker does not depend on detailed analysis of a particular virus. Unlike a scanner, a behaviour blocker does not need to know what a new virus looks like to catch it.

Unfortunately, it is not that easy to block all the virus activity. Some viruses use quite effective and sophisticated techniques, such as tunnelling, to bypass possibly present behaviour blockers. Even worse, some legitimate programs use virus-like methods which could trigger a behaviour blocker. For example, an install or setup utility is often modifying executable files. So, when a behaviour blocker is triggered by such a utility, it's up to the user to decide whether it is a virus or not. And this is often a tough choice - you would not assume all the users are anti-virus experts, would you?

But even an ideal behaviour blocker (there is no such thing in our real world, mind you!), which never triggers on a legitimate program and never misses a real virus, still has a major flaw. To enable a behaviour blocker to detect a virus, the virus must be run on a computer. Not to mention virtually any user would reject the very idea of running a virus on his/her computer, by the time a behaviour blocker catches the virus attempting to modify executable files, the virus could have triggered and destroy some of your valuable data files, for example.

1.3. Integrity checkers

An integrity checker is a program which should be run periodically (say, once a day) to detect all the changes made to your files and disks. This means, when an integrity checker is first installed to your system, you need to run it to create a database of all files on your system. Then during subsequent runs the integrity checker compares files on your system to the data stored in the database and detects any changes made to the files. Since all the viruses modify either files or system areas of disks in order to replicate, a good integrity checker should be able to spot such changes and to alert the user. Unlike a behaviour blocker, it is much more difficult for a virus to bypass an integrity checker, provided you run your integrity checker in a virus clean environment - e.g. having booted your PC from a known virus free system diskette.

But again, as in the case of behaviour blockers, there are many possible situations when the user's expertise is necessary to decide whether changes detected are results of a virus activity. Again, if you run an instal

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