Symbiosis in malware

The relationship one piece of malware has with another has always been lukewarm at best. Some malware, such as the Netsky worm, actually hunts out and attempts to destroy other malware. In this way, symbiosis seems impossible. Because for it to take place, said malware would have to work together.

Unfortunately, we are now seeing this in one case of malware. Two pieces of malware that assist each other in staying on a computer are proving difficult to remove.

Vobfus and Beebone help each other by downloading other variants of the other piece of malware. This helps avoid detection because of the fact that other variants might not be detected. And new variants are not likely to be detected at first by many antivirus programs.

Two pieces of malware on a computer is in and of itself, a combo that you would wish to avoid. But when the pieces of malware are actually helping each other, you know that there will be quite a bit of successful infection.

Vobfus is a worm that spreads primarily via infected flash drives. Once infection on a computer has taken place, it then downloads the latest variant of Beebone from a Command and Control server. Vobfus also uses the autorun function which, if enabled, allows Vobfus to automatically infect a computer running Windows.

I see this method of infection becoming popular. If later variants cannot be detected by antivirus programs, this makes the odds of the malware staying on an infected computer that much higher. And if the malware is too fast in downloading the latest variants, the only real option could be to reinstall the operating system. And while this may seem cynical, it truly is the reality of the situation we face.

Thank You for reading. I invite readers to comment with any questions or comments.