Malware 2.0 is Going to Be Murder

Back in 1990, Leonard Cohen warned us, "Get ready for the future, brother -- it is murder!" Lately I've come to a deeper appreciation of just how prescient he was. Defending against malware is hard enough: The intersection of malware, computational linguistics, social networks, image analysis, and data mining is even worse.

Imagine that you receive an email from one of your closest friends. "I saw this and thought of you," it says. "It's about a new Michael Mann movie that's coming out soon." Of course you click on the attached PDF, and why shouldn't you? It's from someone you know. How would a malware author know you're a huge Miami Vice fan? It's obviously from your friend.

And yet the instant you click on it, the game's over. You're infected. Your friend never sent you that email. You were suckered in by some advanced technology that is due to appear in tomorrow's malware.