VIRUS RESEARCH UNITUniversity of Tampere, Department of Computer and Information Sciences |
WELCOME TO THE VIRUS RESEARCH UNIT'S HOME PAGE!
To find valid information about the Mydoom, Sobig, Lovsan, Bugbear, Klez, Badtrans, Nimda, Sircam, Loveletter or Melissa virus please click here
Virus Research Unit is a unit which has concentrated on computer antivirus research. This includes analysis of antivirus products and development of tools for computer antivirus research.
Please note that Virus Research Unit has not been recently conducting antivirus product evaluations. However, our intention is to continue the analyses in the future if resources allow.
A powerful tool for computer antivirus research is an invention called Automatic and Controlled Virus Code Execution System. The system has now been extended to operate also in the Windows environment. From here you can view and download Virus Research Unit's public documents and contact other computer antivirus sites.
The main researcher and so far the only researcher of the Virus Research Unit is Marko Helenius. Public defence of his Ph.D. thesis was on June 6th 2002 and his dissertation is publicly available. Marko graduated from the University of Tampere on January 1994. His master of science thesis was about computer viruses and their prevention and part of the study was a large scale questionnaire survey conserning computer viruses (SURVEY.ZIP). The main aims of the study were to examine spread of computer viruses in Finland, virus prevention levels in organisations and damage computer viruses have caused. The responsible person of the Virus Research Unit is professor Pertti Järvinen.
PAGE ESTABLISHED: 20.12.1995, VISITS SINCE 20.12.1995:
LINKS TO OTHER COMPUTER ANTIVIRUS SITES
Here are most of the other main computer antivirus sites. From these sites you may, for example, download antivirus software and get information concerning computer viruses and computer virus prevention.
PRODUCT RELATED SITES:
Avast / ALWIL SoftwareAVP / Kaspersky Labs Int.
Command AntiVirus / Command Software Systems Inc.Dr Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit / Network AssociatesDr W E B / DialogueScience Inc. --- FTP-connection Esafe / Aladdin Knowledge Systems F-Prot / FRISK Software International F-Secure Anti-Virus / F-Secure Ltd. --- FTP-connection GFI security products / GFI Software Ltd. IBM Antivirus / IBM Corporation --- Research information Inoculan / Computer Associates Integrity Master / Stiller Research --- FTP-connection McAfee Scan / Network Associates Inc. --- FTP-connection
NOD / ESET Ltd. Norman Virus Control / Norman Data Defense Systems --- FTP-connection
Norton Antivirus / Symantec Corporation --- FTP-connection Panda Antivirus / Panda Software PC-cillin / Trend Micro Devices Per Antivirus / Per Systems (Spanish) Principlar Antivirus / Resplendence Software Projects Sp Protector Plus / Proland Software RAV Antivirus / GECAD Software Resolution Antivirus / Secure Resolutions Inc. Sophos SWEEP / Sophos Plc. --- FTP-connection VFind for Unix / CyberSoft Inc. VET / Cybec Pty. Ltd. Virus Buster / Leprechaun Software Pty. Ltd. Virus Utilities / IKARUS Software GesmbH.
OTHER SITES:
AVIEN (Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network) EICAR (Europian Institute for Computer Antivirus Research) Freebyte's antivirus site GFI e-mail security test Mac Virus - Information about Macintosh viruses Virus Bulletin journal Virus Help and Information by Henri Delger Virus Test Center, University of Hamburg West Coast, the home for Secure Computing magazine The WildList Organization International
VIRUS DESCRIPTIONS:
AVP Virus Encyclopedia Virus Central by Dr Solomon's Software Virus Encyclopedia by Symantec Antivirus Research Center Virus Info Library by Network Associates Inc. Virus Information by F-Secure Ltd. Virus Information by Command Software Systems Inc.
INFORMATION ABOUT SOME SELF-DISTRIBUTING VIRUSES:EICAR 2005 (30.4 - 3.5.2005) AVAR 2004 (25.11 - 26.11 2004, Tokyo) Virus Bulletin Conference 2004 (29.9 - 1.10.2004, Chicago)
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W32/Mydoom.a
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W32/Sobig.f
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W32/Lovsan
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W32/Bugbear
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W32/Klez.h
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W32/BadTrans.b
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W32/Nimda
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W32/Sircam
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VBS/Love-letter
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W97M/Melissa
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ALWIL
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AVP
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F-SECURE
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NETWORK ASSOCIATES
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NORMAN
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SOPHOS
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SYMANTEC
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CONFERENCES:
NEWSGROUPS:
DOCTORAL THESES:
As fas as I know, there exist 5 doctoral theses about computer viruses. If you know any other please let me know.
Cohen Fred (1986), "Computer Viruses", Dissertation, Faculty of the Graduate School, University of Southern California
Leitold Ferench (1994). "A számítógépes vírusok felismerésének elmélete és gyakorlata Kandidátusi értekezés" (Theory and practice of the detection of computer viruses). Dissertation, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1994
Bontchev Vesselin (1998), "Methodology of Anti-Virus Research", Dissertation, Faculty of Informatics, University of Hamburg
Helenius Marko (2002). "A System to Support the Analysis of Antivirus Products' Virus Detection Capabilities". dissertation. University of Tampere, Department of Computer and Information Sciences. Publication series A-2002-7 Available: http://acta.uta.fi/english/teos.phtml?6803 (21.3.2003)
Schmall Markus (2002) "Classification and Identification of Malicious Code Based on Heuristic Techniques Utilizing Meta Languages", Dissertation, Faculty of Informatics, University of Hamburg
DOCUMENTS:
Virus Research Unit's public documents
- Dissertation: A System to Support the Analysis of Antivirus Products' Virus Detection Capabilities --- PDF
Joe Well's list of PC viruses in the wild VIRUS-L/comp.virus, Frequently Asked Questions alt.comp.virus, Frequently Asked Questions Suzana Stojakovic-Celustka's Alive issues --- Download Suzana Stojakovic-Celustka's Ph.D thesis: Building Secure Information Systems
If your site is not included and you wish to have it included, please contact Marko Helenius and tell him your name, organization and WWW or FTP address.