Industry News Coverage (2004 Archive)

Below is a comprehensive monthly review of the news and other media's coverage of CME. A brief summary of each news item is listed with its title, author (if identified), date, and media source.

CNET.com, November 25, 2004

CME was the main topic of a November 25, 2004 article on CNET.com entitled "Standardised malware naming for the new year." The article stated: "A new initiative that aims standardise malware naming may be in operation as early as January 2005. The US Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team, US-CERT, is set to coordinate a Common Malware Enumeration initiative among anti-virus vendors, according to a letter sent to The SANS Institute and signed by representatives of the DHS, Symantec, Microsoft, McAfee, and Trend Micro. Rather like MITRE Corp's Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list, US-CERT will maintain and coordinate a database of malware identifiers."

TechWeb.com, November 24, 2004

CME was the main topic of a November 24, 2004 article on TechWeb.com entitled "Order To Come To Virus Naming Chaos." The article mentions US-CERT, describes CME, and included excerpts from the letter to the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center: "As a 'neutral third party' in the marketplace, US-CERT will coordinate with security vendors to implement a CME [Common Malware Enumeration] malware identification scheme. Limited operational capability is expected first quarter, 2005; this phase will concentrate on the most important threats, including the recent Beagle/Bagle variants." A second excerpt stated: "Once all parties adopt a neutral, shared identification method, effective information sharing can happen faster and with more accuracy, making it easier to distinguish between very similar threats."

Information Week's Compliance Pipeline, November 24, 2004

CME was the main topic of a November 24, 2004 article on Information Week's Compliance Pipeline entitled "Order To Come To Virus Naming Chaos." The article mentions US-CERT, describes CME, and included excerpts from the letter to the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center: "As a 'neutral third party' in the marketplace, US-CERT will coordinate with security vendors to implement a CME [Common Malware Enumeration] malware identification scheme. Limited operational capability is expected first quarter, 2005; this phase will concentrate on the most important threats, including the recent Beagle/Bagle variants." A second excerpt stated: "Once all parties adopt a neutral, shared identification method, effective information sharing can happen faster and with more accuracy, making it easier to distinguish between very similar threats."

CME Initiative's Open Letter on SANS Internet Storm Center, November 23, 2004

An open letter from an AV customer to AV vendors was posted to the SANS Internet Storm Center calling for the vendors to solicit the help of a neutral 3rd party like SANS or US-CERT to help solve the malware identification problem. The CME team drafted a response that was co-signed by MITRE's CME Team, US-CERT/DHS representatives, and the participating vendors. The response letter was posted by the SANS Internet Storm Center on Wednesday, November 23, 2004: http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?date=2004-11-23).

The letter generated press hits and discussion list postings both in the US cyber-media as well as European outlets, including the following:

• http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayCiteList&orgId=685&topicId=14279
• http://www.virusbtn.com/news/virus_news/2004/11_25.xml
• http://www.computerworld.no/index.cfm/ill_liste/artikkel/id/47105
• http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=113086
• http://technocrat.net/article.pl?sid=04/11/27/1443219
• http://www.pcwelt.de/news/sicherheit/105197/
• http://www.tecchannel.de/mobile/pda/18345/
• http://www.ngn.nl/over/nws_art.phtml?backurl=/content_start.phtml&id=11014831999414&area_id=0
• http://www.gsec.co.uk/news/news.php?title=Virus%20names%20could%20be%20standardized&id=1470
• http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6132-0.html?forumID=32&threadID=47637&messageID=565094
• http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/54200541
• http://www.informationweek.compliancepipeline.com/54200541
• http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041126/221/f7ddy.html
• http://lists.virus.org/isn-0411/msg00094.html

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Federal Computer Weekly, October 11, 2004

CME was mentioned in an October 11, 2004 article in Federal Computer Weekly entitled "Industry fears security setbacks: Amit Yoran's departure from DHS may spur re-evaluation of role" by Florence Olsen. In discussing Yoran's efforts on the National Cyber Alert System, the article states: "But other cybersecurity projects, not so visible or well publicized, could have an equal or greater impact on cyber security, some industry officials said. "One such program was an initiative to gather vendors' virus signature files, through the department's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) Web site, for federal civilian agencies as soon as the vendors released them. Yoran was leading efforts to standardize virus nomenclature and coordinate virus responses, said Tom Simmons, director of federal markets for Trend Micro, Inc., an antivirus software company."

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SC Magazine, September 2004

CME was mentioned in a September 2004 article in SC Magazine entitled "The Need to Define Malware" by David Perry. The article discusses a new, 1-year effort called the anti-virus nomenclature project (AVNP), which had its first meeting at the 2004 Virus Bulletin conference in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The AVNP effort hopes to establish industry consensus on the definition and use of words such as virus, worm and infection. Discussing CME's relationship with AVNP, the author states: "The panel was made up of a number of experts, anti-virus vendors, customers, academics and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This last group may be a surprise addition but the Department is conducting a Common Malware Enumeration project (CME). When asked how they would count what nobody can even define, they agreed to join the deliberation."

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