SlashNOT

Misanthrope writes: A widespread name virus afflicting many security software products has been detected and appears to be spreading. Tentatively dubbed “Soundalike.9,” the virus infects through the use of word ‘App’ in security product names. Researchers at the SANS Institute believe that it may have reached a critical mass which would threaten to destabilize the security software industry.

“Off the top of my head I’ve seen AppShield,AppWall, AppFire, AppWatch and AppProtect, AppSecure, AppGuard, AppDefend, and AppArmor infected with it,” said a vulnerability engineer who works under the alias Primal Malice. “I don’t know who wrote the virus but it’s quite a broad compromise.”

Some security professionals dismiss the virus threat. “It’s possible that this was intentional move by some of these vendors,” observed security engineer Raven Alder. “It’s a typical kind of security-through-obscurity tactic to hide among other similarly named products.” When asked about the name spoofing risks she replied: “This is just like the Active– and Open– outbreaks we had five and three years ago. Next year, every applicatoin is going to be Live–”