Rooting out malware

Sophos joins anti-rootkit market, others expected to follow soon.

Sophos

has released a free anti-rootkit tool, available for download from its website. The UK-based company joins

F-Secure

, whose

BlackLight

has been around for some time and will soon be integrated into the company’s mainstream product line. Also in the field are, among others,

Grisoft

and

BitDefender

, both offering free beta downloads.

Sysinternals

‘ widely-trusted

RootKitRevealer

is also still available free following the company’s

acquisition

by

Microsoft

.

Trend Micro

and

McAfee

are expected to release tools in the near future.

Most of the tools operate by comparing internal and externally visible file structures to reveal concealed files, often with some filtering out of ‘expected’ hidden files to simplify output for the less technical user.

Trend

‘s forthcoming technology will apparently focus more on prevention, blocking rootkit installers at the network layer before they have chance to embed themselves. Controversial changes to

Windows

, expected to be included in the forthcoming

Vista

release, may help prevent rootkits by blocking kernel hooking, but may also mean difficulties for anti-virus and other security software.

Check out the products from


Sophos


,


F-Secure


and


BitDefender


.

Grisoft

‘s

AVG Anti-Rootkit Beta

is available, after registration,

here

, and

RootKitRevealer

is still free at


Sysinternals


.

Read articles on the problem

here

and

here

, and find a full list of available products at


AntiRootkit.com


.

Posted on 24 August 2006 by

Virus Bulletin