VIRUS RESEARCH UNIT

University of Tampere, Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Kanslerinrinne 1, 33014 University of Tampere, FINLAND, PHONE:[phone],
FAX:[phone], E-MAIL: [e-mail]

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 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.

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PAGE ESTABLISHED: 20.12.1995, VISITS SINCE 20.12.1995:

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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 Software
AVP / Kaspersky Labs Int.
Metropolitan Network BBS Inc. (Swiss distributor)
Command AntiVirus / Command Software Systems Inc.
Dr Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit / Network Associates
Dr 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
Virus Help Centre (Swedish distributor)
NOD / ESET Ltd.
Norman Virus Control / Norman Data Defense Systems --- FTP-connection
Norman Ibas Oy (Finish subsidiarie)
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)

 

W32/Mydoom.a

W32/Sobig.f

W32/Lovsan

W32/Bugbear

W32/Klez.h

W32/BadTrans.b

W32/Nimda

W32/Sircam

VBS/Love-letter

W97M/Melissa

ALWIL

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CONFERENCES:

NEWSGROUPS:

comp.virus

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
Antivirus scanner analysis 1999 --- Download
Antivirus scanner analysis 1997 --- Download
Antivirus scanner analysis 1996 --- Download
Antivirus scanner analysis 1995 --- Download
Antivirus scanner analysis 1994 --- Download
Automatic and Controlled Virus Code Execution System --- Download
Extended Automatic and Controlled Virus Code Execution System --- Download
A questionnaire survey of computer viruses in Finland --- Download
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.