How does behavior blocking software work

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They can be triggered by inputs specifically designed to execute malicious code or to make the program operate in an unintended way. As such, buffer overflows cause many software vulnerabilities and form the basis of many exploits. Turning-on buffer overflow protection instructs the Comodo Internet Security to raise pop-up alerts in every event of a possible buffer overflow attack. You can allow or deny the requested activity raised by the process under execution depending on the reliability of the software and its vendor.

Click here for more details on the alerts. To exclude some of the file types from being monitored under Detect Shellcode injections. Select the 'Detect shellcode injections' checkbox and click the Exclusions link. The 'Manage Exclusions' dialog will appear.

Comodo Internet Security Version 7. Configuring Access Restriction The Behavior Blocker will auto-sandbox an unknown executable and restrict its execution privileges according to an access restriction level set by you. Access restriction levels determine what level of rights a sandboxed application has to access other software and hardware resources on your computer: Partially Limited - The application is allowed to access all operating system files and resources like the clipboard.

Default Limited - Only selected operating system resources can be accessed by the application. Blocked - The application is not allowed to run at all.

To define exclusions Select the 'Define exclusions for behavior blocking' checkbox and click the Exclusions link. Click the handle at the bottom of the interface and choose 'Add' You can add items by selecting the required option from the drop-down: File Groups - Enables you to select a category of pre-set files or folders.

Click 'OK' to implement your settings. Viruscope Settings Viruscope monitors the activities of all processes, regardless of whether they are running normally or inside the sandbox. If suspicious activity is detected, Viruscope will generate a pop-up alert that allows you to block or allow the activity.

Default Ignore Once - The action will be allowed for one time. Advanced Settings: Do heuristic command-line analysis for certain applications - Selecting this option instructs Comodo Internet Security to perform heuristic analysis of programs that are capable of executing code such as visual basic scripts and java applications.

Click the handle from the bottom of the interface and choose 'Add' You can add items by selecting the required option from the drop-down: File Groups - Enables you to select a category of pre-set files or folders. Note : These settings are recommended for advanced users only.

Such systems are often appealing to administrators because their logic is transparent and easy to understand. However, these systems are also most prone to false positives and have the largest impact on employee productivity because they block activities of both malicious and legitimate programs with equal vigor; no attempt is made to identify whether the behaviors are malicious or not.

In contrast to policy-based systems, expert-based systems employ a more opaque method of operation. In these systems, human experts have analyzed entire classes of malicious code and then designed their behavior blocking systems to recognize and block suspicious behaviors. Under some circumstances a would-be dangerous behavior is allowed, and under others, it is blocked.

Such a rule is less likely to block legitimate programs and generate false alarms, yet still blocks a high percentage of threats. When building an expert-based behavior blocker, engineers need to consider different blocking rules for each type of malicious code. This section will give some insight into some of the operations that might be blocked to thwart each type of malicious code. Parasitic viruses are self-replicating programs that attach themselves to other programs.

When an infected program is launched, the virus gains control and then inserts its logic into other executable files. Behavior blockers can protect against this type of threat by observing modifications of one executable file by another that are characteristic of viral infection. Such modifications include changes to the file headers and modification of code sections in executable files, among others.

Behavior blockers can use a range of techniques here: block all programs from modifying other programs, block modifications to certain header fields that allow for infection, etc. Worms and blended threats spread over networks via e-mail, drive sharing or by exploiting other vulnerabilities. To block these types of threats, the behavior blocker must inject itself between programs and their vectors of propagation.

Possible approaches include blocking suspicious use of e-mail APIs to send executable code, preventing unknown programs from communicating over the network, and blocking programs from using drive sharing to copy executable content to other computers. Behavior blocking systems arguably hold great promise as an additional layer of protection against the latest malicious code threats. In fact, there are already a number of small companies offering these solutions.

Why have these products had only limited success in the enterprise? I believe that there are four reasons for this lack of success:. These are obviously my own observations in speaking with customers, systems engineers and security professionals. I invite those readers who have used these systems to contact me with your experiences. Over the next few years, I believe we will see a great deal of movement in this area.

There are still a number of significant issues that must be worked out with existing behavior blocking systems. As with intrusion detection systems a very close cousin to behavior blockers , false positives are still a concern. Organizations such as DARPA, universities and private companies have been trying to solve these false positive issues for years, with few commercially viable results.

There is virtually no level of expertise required by the user, the scanner recognizes a bad program and will not let it run. You might call this an intelligent approach. Good programs run without the scanner bugging you and bad programs are blocked, regardless of whether you are an expert or a novice. Behavior blockers do not care what the motive of the program is, they stop certain things from happening.

Airport security is a lot like a behavior blocker. Behavior blockers do not generally care what the program is, if it tries to perform a specific action the behavior blocker will stop it. If the behavior blocker is set to stop programs from writing to the registry then many bad programs will fail to work and many good programs will be completely unusable as well. If you wish to use a behavior blocker effectively it generally requires that you understand a lot about computers.

You have to know when to tell the blocker an action is ok and when to say no. If you say no all of the time you will not be able to use much software.