Dr Laurence Loewe, of the School of Biological Sciences, who carried out the study, says: "The emergence of superbugs resistant to antibiotics is a growing threat to health care, and integrating our existing knowledge about bacteria is challenging. Using computing power to model the complex pathways by which bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics could help find a fresh way to predict how superbugs evolve - and so help to fight them."

A framework study is needed, he says,  that could help bring together the wealth of data generated by scientific research about bacteria, (though he is not convinced that  approaches to evolving software malware would be relevant.)  Pooling all this information together with knowledge of how living organisms evolve over time could create a fuller picture of how bacteria that cause infections behave and develop.

EvoSysBio is expected to lead to a more detailed understanding of the fundamental principles of life by combining knowledge about well-known biological systems from several disciplines. This will benefit both evolutionary theory and current systems biology. Understanding robustness by analysing distributions of mutational effects and epistasis is pivotal for drug design, cancer research, responsible genetic engineering in synthetic biology and many other practical applications.

The study, published in the journal BMC Systems Biology,  was contributed to by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Software malware probably needs a similar framework.

(L to R) PWSLineage, Stormy, MyDoom, IRCbot, Virutmytob.

Recently the RSA Conference held in  San Francisco brought together information security professionals to discuss  cyber malware threats.   Message Labs, part of Symantec, has fascinatingly focused its marketing campaign working with digital artists, initially to graphically show what the cyber threats actually look like.

The images are being generated from the actual code from each of the threats by Romanian artist Alex Dragulescu,  (right) whose practice embraces both traditional and new media. His images from the (left) Spam Architecture series are generated by a computer program that accepts as input, junk email. Various patterns, keywords and rhythms found in the text are translated into three-dimensional modeling gestures.

Malwarez is a series of visualization of worms, viruses, trojans and spyware code. For each piece of disassembled code, API calls, memory addresses and subroutines are tracked and analysed. Their frequency, density and grouping are mapped to the inputs of an algorithm that grows a virtual 3D entity. Therefore the patterns and rhythms found in the data drive the configuration of the artificial organism. Dragulescu projects are experiments and explorations of algorithms, computational models, simulations and information visualisations that involve data derived from databases, spam emails, blogs and video game assets.

Following on from threats, MessageLabs offered commissioned artwork this time from Julian Hodgson   to represent non-threat images  representing MessageLabs archiving (left), boundary encryption (right)  and email continuity services (left).

Algorithms were then developed and implemented that would position each component of the image based on the underlying data of attachment size, geographical location of email and email volume and and the algorithms were then rendered as a 3D image.

Computational artist Hodgson undertook these graphics.  With a mathematics degree from Bristol and an MSc from Liverpool Universities, Hodgson first became interested in the field of graphics programming after developing his own techniques to visually model complex mathematical equations. He has been working in post production for eight years and is currently the technical director for award winning Passion Pictures  in London and, faceless, is named on the story boards for Meerkat.com

Symantec MessageLabs reports April
The analysis highlights that spam has increased almost 10% in one month, reaching heights of 85.3%, levels not experienced since September 2007. Also in April, the high profile G20 summit was subject for a rise in targeted malware attacks. In addition, the number of malicious websites intercepted daily continued to increase significantly, taking the average number of intercepted each day to 3,561.

“Image spam was a phenomena that peaked in 2007, and now we see spammers recycling their techniques in the hope of repeating history,” said Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Symantec. “Unfortunately for the spammers, the good guys are ready for the next bout of image spam and the cyber criminals have had to significantly revamp their tactics in order to put up a good fight.”

Other techniques used to evade detection include containing some standard email text, such as unsubscribe opt-outs and privacy links, designed to make the overall appearance seem legitimate and compliant with legislation such as CAN-SPAM in the US. Including randomized words within the content of the message in order to evade spam fingerprinting techniques and the use of HTML style tags to hide random text are other frequently used tactics.

The G20 summit was the subject of intense global media attention and also the subject for a rise in targeted malware attacks over the last two months, peaking in early April. On average in 2008 the number of such attacks was approximately 53 per day, rising to around 60 per day in Q1 2009. In the run-up to the G20 summit held in London on April 2, and the days following, the number rose to some 100 per day.

The recipients of these attacks included financial organisations, including individuals from some of the central banks involved with the G20. The email included a PDF attachment, which if opened would cause a Trojan (lfet) downloader to be installed and executed. This would then download further spyware components onto the target computer. It was noted that some attacks were crafted as replies to actual non-malicious emails, indicating that at least one of the recipients had already been infected.

“The economic crisis is front of mind for many people, cyber criminals included,” said Wood. “With recession-related spam and (right) phishing attacks already appearing this year, it was just a matter of time before other fraudsters got in on the act. Consumers need to increase their online vigilance in such testing times.”

Finally, the number of malicious websites continues to rise with April statistics highlighting an increase of 27.3 percent, with 3,561 new malicious websites stopped on average each day. This is due to a series of threats including drive-by Trojan malware, Trojans hidden inside PDF files, malware disguised as .gif’s but in fact being executable files, and malicious IFRAME HTML tags. The latter is often as a result of the web server being compromised by a SQL injection attack, a technique favored when targeting otherwise legitimate, bona fide domains. Other culprits also include software disguised as legitimate-looking apps, including rogue anti-malware software.

Web security: Analysis of web security activity shows that 63.3% of all web-based malware intercepted was new in April. MessageLabs Intelligence identified an average of 3,561 new websites per day harboring malware and other potentially unwanted programs such as spyware and adware, an increase of 27.3% since March.

Spam: In April 2009, the global ratio of spam in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was 85.3% (1 in 1.17 emails), an increase of 9.6% since March.

Viruses: The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was one in 304.9 emails (0.28%), a decrease of 0.08% since March. In April, 13.3% of email-borne malware contained links to malicious sites, a decrease of 6.9% since March.

Phishing: One in 404.7 emails (0.25%) comprised some form of phishing attack, a decrease of 0.10%in the proportion of phishing attacks compared with March. When judged as a proportion of all email-borne threats such as viruses and Trojans, the number of phishing emails had decreased by 9.2%  to 89.7% of all email-borne malware threats intercepted in April.

Geographical Trends:
* Spam levels UK rose 25.6% in April to 94%, positioning it as the most spammed country.
* Spam levels in the US rose to 79.4 %, 77.4 % in Canada and 89.9% in Hong Kong. Germany’s spam rate reached 83.3 % and Netherland 78.0%. In Australia levels were 87.8%, 90.3% in China and 86.4% in Japan.
* Virus activity in Germany rose by 0.07% to 1 in 164.8 emails, placing it in the top virus position in April.
* Virus levels US were 1 in 512.1, 1 in 269.0 for Canada and 1 in 908.8 for Australia. Virus levels for the UK were 1 in 229.3, 1 in 370.8 in Hong Kong and in Japan they reached 1 in 1,883.2.

Vertical Trends:
* In April, the most spammed industry sector with a spam rate of 82.9% was the retail sector. Levels reached 81.1% for the education sector; 77.3% for the chemical & pharmaceutical sector; 76.1% for public sector and 78.2 % for finance.
* Virus activity in the education sector fell by 0.19% but it still stayed at the top of the table with 1 in 118.1 emails being infected.
* Virus levels for the IT Services sector were 1 in 367.3, 1 in 506.1 for Retail and 1 in 446.9 for Finance.

The April 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence Report