Once in a while, a piece of malware will come along that grabs headlines. Rarer is malware that is talked about around the water cooler (at places other than Symantec). But the rarest of all is malware that actually makes history. It is for just such a piece of malware that we observe the one year anniversary this month.
Roughly around this time one year ago, a Belarusian computer security company reported finding malicious code designed to exploit a new Microsoft Windows vulnerability, dubbed the .LNK vulnerability. Little did they know this malware would change the world.
The fact that the malware exploited a zero-day vulnerability is significant, but certainly not history making. So, what made this malware so special? After the initial discovery, Symantec’s in-depth analysis of this particular malware ensued. Thousands of man hours analyzing 500 kilobytes of code later, the .LNK vulnerability was shown to be just the tip of the iceberg, and a very dangerous...