Malwarebytes have launched a tool to protect users against known and unknown zero-day exploits.
Using behavioural analysis rather than a signature database, the company claimed that Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit demands minimal system resources and interaction and runs silently protecting against vulnerabilities in mass-market applications such as browsers, Java, document readers, media players and others.
It stops attackers from executing malicious code by using three separate layers of defence: actively guarding against OS security bypasses, protecting exploits executing from memory and stopping applications from running malicious payloads.
Pedro Bustamante, whose technology was acquired by Malwarebytes from Zero Vulnerability Labs in June 2013, told IT Security Guru that this was important as exploits are commonly the “pain point” for companies. “This blocks exploits, as this looks at how exploitation is happening and we look at techniques and as this is not relying on signatures, we are looking at the operation of the application,” he said.
“This is not like machine learning, we do update the software every now and again, but it is not like anti-virus where we release a version every two years or so, instead we look at the behaviour of the application.” Bustamante said that this sits on the endpoint with a footprint of only 3MB.
Marcin Kleczynski, Malwarebytes’ CEO, said: “With the advanced threat landscape becoming increasingly exploit-led, this new proactive technology puts people and companies back on solid ground. This is especially important for those still running Windows XP.”
