“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” ― Robert Frost
How the Bullies began...
The Dark Battle that is malware has been with us for more than 70 years. The Zeldaserver Antimalware Server put an end to this struggle in every network where we installed one. Let's dig a little deeper into this.
The origin of the Dark Battle was more than 70 years ago. The concept of malware goes back to 1949 when John von Neumann wrote “Theory and Organization of Complicated Automata” which postulated how a computer program could replicate itself. The very next year, in 1950, Bell Labs gave life to this idea when they created “Core Wars”. This was a game where the players competed for control over the computer they were playing on. Now... After all this time, deep in this Dark Battle we are. To each of you I would say, never allow yourself to be made a victim!
Just twenty years later, the first known virus, “Creeper Worm”, was discovered. This virus gained access to the ARPANET. The Advanced Research Projects Agency NETwork was the forerunner to what we know today as the internet. From there, the "Creeper Worm" copied itself to remote systems where it displayed the following message:
In 1983, while a graduate student at the University of Southern California, Fred Cohen demonstrated what he called a computer virus. During a security seminar at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, he inserted his proof-of-concept code from the command line and within five minutes he had complete control of the system. In 1987, Dr. Cohen demonstrated, in his paper “An Undetectable Computer Virus” that no program could be written that could detect all possible computer viruses. Dr. Cohen referred to a virus as the following...
Between 2000 and 2010 malware exploded in its number and the speed with which it could spread. These malicious actors are now infecting everything from mobile phones, ATM machines, security cameras, TVs, e-cigarettes, and vending machines to even very large facilities, such as, nuclear power plants and oil and gas pipelines.
The Anti-Virus Industry has been fighting this battle for more than thirty years and despite all that they have accomplished, they are failing to solve this problem. We, at The Zeldaserver Project ™, believe that to wait until this malicious software is sitting on your computer is to invite disaster. There are now, and there have always been, only a few ways for these programs to find their way onto your computer. Yet, once they are there, one would quickly lose count of what they can do.
A Zeldaserver Anti-Malware Server is not designed to identify and destroy them. It is designed to keep them from getting to your computer in the first place.
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Back in 2008 we were tasked with solving a growing and very difficult problem for the corporation for which we worked. This corporation had an annual revenue of $200 Million, was comprised of 5 different companies in three different locations and had about 150 workstations between them. The problem was malware.
For several years we had seen the infection rate grow from one or two a year to one or two each month and then one or two each week. And it was not slowing down. We knew we had to fix this.
Now we fully understood that many great companies like Symantec, Trend Micro, Sophos, just to name a few, and their many great minds had developed some fascinating technology to help protect people from these malicious actors. We also fully understood that the problem was only growing and that none of these great companies with all of their great minds had solved this problem. It would seem that Dr. Cohen was correct.
Given the lack of a viable solution, we created the first Zeldaserver and solved the problem !!
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When I was working on my Bachelor of Science, in Computer Science, they taught us many things about how to write a computer program. But the very first thing they taught us turned out to be one of the most useful things I ever learned.
They told us that before we could ever write a program to do something, we had to be able to do that “something” with a pen and paper. If we could not do it, in this simple form, we would never understand it sufficiently to build a computer program to do the same.
What this did was make us define and verify the “process” that we would then replicate with a computer program. I later discovered a much deeper application of this in the realm of Information Technology.
What this was doing was solving a problem and Information Technology is full of such problems that need to be solved. And it worked. Just like it did in school. Process, People, and Platform
Every application of technology to a problem, in the pursuit of a solution, will require each of the following in order to be successful. How much of each will depend upon the problem, but every such solution will require something from all three.
The successful application of technology to solve a problem requires an efficient Process, effective People, and a reliable Platform. A good solution can only be realized by finding the right balance and application of "The Three Ps". In other words, technology cannot solve a problem by itself. It needs you and it needs an overarching process
So how does all of this relate to the Zeldaserver Anti-Malware Server? Simply put, how you use the Zeldaserver is the “Process”. How well you execute the process is the “People”. The Zeldaserver, itself, is the “Platform”. And... all together they solve the problem!
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In 1966 the Ford Motor Company won “The 24 Hours of Le Mans”. The most demanding car race in the world. They did not just win the race, but they finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd with their, newly built, GT40 MkII. This car was built to do one thing and one thing only. Beat Ferrari in a race that they, Ferrari, had dominated for all of the 1960's.
In an effort to solve an aerodynamic problem with the car, the Ford engineers installed a massive computer system to take measurements from the car as it went around the track. The process was going to take weeks to collect all the data they needed. The Shelby racing team quickly grew tired of this and ripped it all out. They taped strips of yarn to the body of the car and took all the measurements they needed in one day.
Process, People, Platform... Problem Solved!
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The application of a Zeldaserver Anti-Malware Server to a network environment is an exercise in Risk Management. Risk Management has long been used in the Business Community where there is significant opportunity for negative events to occur. It is used to avoid the threat, reduce the opportunity, transfer the risk and retain that which must be done despite the risk. This is exactly what a Zeldaserver Anti-Malware Server empowers you to do. Let us take a look at each one of these.
With respect to the malware that you may find while browsing the web, how is it that this threat may be avoided? Well, the best way to not get struck by lightning is to not be standing there when it strikes. The Zeldaserver Anti-Malware Server provides you with a great way to avoid this threat. By using the Zeldaserver for 80% of your web browsing, you are avoiding the threat. It is the Zeldaserver that is in the direct path of any malicious actors, not your computer.
By moving 80% of your web browsing to the Zeldaserver Anti-Malware Server, you are reducing the opportunity of infection to almost 0%. The average user will visit many websites per day. Only a few of these would be critical. Thus, the vast majority of this web browsing would never be done on the user's local computer. The set of critical sites, that are done on the local computer, will normally be rather constant, with the user going to the same few sights each day or week. However, on the Zeldaserver, there could easily be a whole new set of sites being visited each day. This scenario of displacing the vast majority of the web browsing to the Zeldaserver Anti-Malware Server is extremely effective. The resulting reduction in the opportunity of infection is very significant indeed.
The transferring of 80%, or more, of your web browsing to the Zeldaserver transfers that risk to a point that is off your computer and off your network. Thus, removing the risk there in from your local environment. That is to say that your local computer and your local network are no longer exposed to whatever risk there is to be found in the 80%.
That which is critical to the business will continue to be done locally on the network. This would include anything that requires authentication, an expenditure, or the handling of other sensitive information. This is the content of the remaining 20%.
These four elements of Risk Management work so tightly together that it is hard to separate them. Transferring the risk helps to reduce the opportunity. This, in turn, helps to avoid the threat. Which then helps to retain that which is necessary. In doing one you are providing for the others and the net effect is a clean well-protected environment from which everyone may work.