Today’s topics include a report finding fileless malware attacks are on the rise, and Linus Torvalds discussing the future of Linux.
According to SentinelOne’s Enterprise Risk Index Report for the first half of 2018, fileless malware attacks are growing in number and sophistication. Fileless malware, which antivirus software cannot find, makes up about 70 percent of executables that are unknown to reputation services.
Fileless malware isn’t an executable file, but rather a process delivered to a computer that takes over an existing service, loading software or following commands that carry out the activities normally associated with malware.
The only way to detect fileless malware is to catch it in the act using monitoring software that will observe activity on your computers, taking immediate action when it sees something suspicious. SentinelOne has an agent that monitors such activity, while other solutions include Cybereason RansomFree and Malwarebytes.
At last week’s Open Source Summit, Linux creator Linus Torvalds sat down with Dirk Hohndel, chief open source officer at VMware, to discuss topics ranging from the recent Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, the Linux development process and the future of Linux.
In reference to the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities that first emerged in January, Torvalds said it feels “less fair” when the Linux kernel has to fix someone else’s issues. He also said he’s not a fan of keeping vulnerabilities secret as it impacts his development workflow.
Regarding his role as the maintainer of Linux and what can or should be done to grow a development community, Torvalds admitted that he doesn’t know every line of code in the Linux kernel at this point and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. He now relies on a group of maintainers and sub-maintainers to handle the specific areas of the Linux kernel.