Therefore it has been suggested that it always preferable to not only pay a subscription to update software currently installed on the system, but to also install the latest software wherever a new version is released (Andrew, 2005). All programs which are employed should be regularly updated to ensure that they are kept current, and should be run as often as possible to ensure that any threat present within the network does not embed itself too deeply, making it more difficult to detect and remove. If available, all possible auto-protect features should be enabled within the network, allowing the system to update itself automatically on a regular basis, and reducing the risk of malware infiltrating the network.

It is also recommended that frequent checks are performed for security patches and updates which are offered by Microsoft for Windows users, or by the manufacturers of other operating systems. Although enabling auto-protect and auto-update features on the system should ensure that these are installed as soon as they are available, it is important to check regularly, as the announcement may serve as an alert to malware programmers of possible areas in which the security of the system may be breached of which they were not previously aware (Andrew, 2005).

Take periodic snapshots of the system, so that should infected data need to be removed, the system can be restored to a previous point. This may not be a reliable solution to the problem however, as with polymorphic malware it is possible that the malicious code may also be restored if it were present at the earlier time in a different variant. The only truly reliable way in which to ensure that the system is entirely clean once it has been infected with polymorphic malware is to format the hard drive and remove all data, reinstalling operating systems from scratch (Hsu et al., 2006).

Future Directions for Anti-malware Software

There have been many parallels drawn between the computer operating environment and the human body; this has led to a concentration of research which uses the human body as its inspirational model for the development of anti-viral and anti-malware software. There are...

The development of virally-immune, self-healing or self-defending information systems networks hold particular promise (Rice and Martin, 2007), although as is evident in the human body, there is still no guarantee that new types of viral software will not emerge which the system would remain unable to deal with.
Conclusions

Although there is undoubtedly a great threat posed by polymorphic malware in the current it world, there are methods to decrease the likelihood of any network becoming infected, most of which centre around constant vigilance, and education of all system users. While there are currently still many difficulties in the detection of polymorphic malware should it infiltrate a system, there is hope that current research will yield new tools which will guard against these malicious attacks.

References

Andrew, a.M. (2005) Cybernetics and systems on the web: internet newsletters. Kybermetes, Vol 34, No 7/8, pp. 1278-1281.

Commtouch: Malware Writers' Tactics Evolving" (2007) eWeek, May 2, 2007. Retrieved September 7, 2007, at http://find.galegroup.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/itx/start.do?prodId=CDB.

Hsu, F., Chen, H., Ristenpart, T., Li, J. And Su, Z. (2006) Back to the future: A framework for automatic malware removal and system repair. Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC '06).

Rice, J. And Martin, N. (2007) Using biological models to improve innovation systems: The case of computer anti-viral software. European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol 10, No 2, pp. 201-214.

Sulaiman, a., Ramamoorthy, K., Mukkamala, S. And Sung, a.H. (2005) Malware examiner using disassembled code (MEDiC). Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Workshop on Information Assurance and Security, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, pp. 428-429.

Xu, J.Y., Sung, a.H., Chavez, P. And Mukkamala, S. (2004) Polymorphic malicious executable scanner by API sequence analysis. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Hybrid Intelligence Systems (HIS '04).