The Cult of the Dead Cow starts community based web application for malware analysis

The Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), a prominent technology activist group, announced a new application designed to collect, analyze, and ultimately help defeat malicious software. Accessible via OffensiveComputing.net, the application gives programmers and end-users free access to a library of over 31,000 hostile software files, including viruses, rootkits, spybots, worms, etc. Users can upload an unknown or suspicious file into the library, request a match, and instantly obtain information on the malicious file, including an analysis of how it operates.

Valsmith and Danny Quist, founders of OffensiveComputing, recently unveiled the new application at DefCon 14 in a speech entitled “Hacking Malware: Offense is the New Defense.”

OffensiveComputing offers an environment where users can work together to address the destructive effects of malware. It provides full visibility into the harmful files, building up the collective knowledge of its users and facilitating the reverse engineering process. It also suggests techniques to help users defeat sophisticated malware protections such as encryption and compression.