Comments on: Defending Against Zero-Day Threats

By: Perry B.

Perry B. — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:00:21 +0000

For me, the best defense against zero-day threat is no other than zero threat protection. Think of it as the complete opposite of zero-day threat.

The principle behind this is that software engineers should protect any form of software against new attacks even before vulnerability is presented to them. Sounds impossible to do, but in reality it’s not.

At present, where information is easily disseminated and cloud-computing is on the rise, zero-threat protection is very plausible.

By: Charles Clane

Charles Clane — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:02:22 +0000

Heuristics is the best weapon against Zero-Day threats. I don’t say patches and updated antivirus are useless but when they do not contain the remedy against the attack, they don’t help a lot. The worst with Zero-Days is that you might be totally oblivious to the fact that you got hacked.

By: Emmanuel Carabott

Emmanuel Carabott — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:48:52 +0000

Hi Alicia,

I totally agree with your regular backups with multiple restore points. In case things go wrong, that can definitely save you!

By: Depak Rasveh

Depak Rasveh — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:55:01 +0000

I’ve been working as a system admin for almost five years now – all I can say is that patch management always, almost work all the time – with 99 percent success rate. Bugs, malwares, and other forms of security threats and vulnerabilities can be fixed with an efficient patch management system.

Although patch management can’t solved and detect all threats, it can help contain what could have been a much bigger problem. It’s a real life saver for me.

Also, if I may add, aside from patch management and vulnerability scanning, you can also try to integrate penetration testing to your system to defend against zeroday threats.

By: Alicia Mirin

Alicia Mirin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:06:17 +0000

Heuristic analysis is invaluable. Another thing that works in smaller organizations is maintaining regular backups and restore points. While some things can be lost in the process, for a particularly debilitating attack rewinding the tape can be useful. However, ultimately it won’t prove to be any good unless you can pinpoint the cause of infection.