To identify the bad content, researchers created a scanning tool that looks for features unique to the bad repositories, known as “Bars.” The features included certain types of redirection schemes and “gatekeeper” elements designed to protect the malware from scanners. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Indiana University Bloomington and the University of California Santa Barbara conducted the study.
Georgia Tech says that the research, believed to be the first systematic study of cloud-based malicious activity, will be presented 24 October at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Vienna, Austria. The work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and involves ECE Professor Raheem Beyah and his Ph.D. student Xiaojing Liao.
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