Rules of the PWN2KILL contest
*****************************
http://www.esiea-recherche.eu/iawacs2010/


The PWN2KILL Contest aims at performing a comparative evaluation of commercial 
antivirus software against actual threats.

An actual threat can be defined as any threat that is operationnally viable. The
purpose is to show that given fixed actual malware threats, the different 
existing antivirus software are of inequal quality. While a few of them are able
to proactively detect unknown malware using known malware techniques, most of 
them are just able to detect most of the known malware (not all of them). 

Moreover, the in-depth analysis of existing antivirus software shows that a 
significant number of malware technique that have been published -- by hackers,
malware writers, researchers in computer security and computer virology -- are 
still not taken into account by commercial antivirus products while those 
techniques indeed represent actual threats. Consequently, it is more than useful
for the end user and the final consumer (since AV software are products that we
buy) to know which antivirus at the less worst and which are the worst. 

The contest board will be composed of a bailiff, of five professional 
journalists from the computer technical press and of three personalities from 
the scientific/hacking community renowned for their personal ethics and skills.

His role will be to record the test results, decide of their validity and elect
the three most efficient attacks.

The contest will be based on the only admissible approach: the experiment and 
the attacker's view.

The rules are very simple:
   1.- A number of computers -- each of them with an antivirus installed -- 
       will be available. The environment will be
       - Windows 7 (in a virtual machine for an easy reconfiguration purpose).
       - User mode (without privilege).
       - No connection to the Internet (to avoid ``external'' attacks or 
         manipulation during the contest). However to enable truly network-based
         attacks (input and/or output data), it will be possible upon request 
         to open temporarily an access to the Internet provided that no attack 
         will be launched from the testing machine towards external systems.
       - Common applications installed (Microsoft suite, OpenOffice Suite, 
         Pdf reader...). Any additional application can be added upon request 
         or can be used through personal USB devices.
       - A printer will be available through the network (spec data available 
         upon request).

   2.- Each participant will come with his (malware) code(s) to test against 
       the antivirus software. He can perform any action that a normal user can
       do (including rebooting the computer, closing a session, using USB 
       devices...). In case of ``proactive'' warning from the operating system 
       or from any application, the user is free to follow them or not. Any user
       has not to be an expert in computers in order to evaluate and interpret 
       technical warnings that sometimes refers to normal behaviours. As an 
       example, warnings like ``an application is attempting to become resident.
       Do you allow it?'' has no meaning for a grandmother using a computer. 
       She is free to allow it!

   3.- In order to make a comparative and fair testing, any code must be tested
       against ALL antivirus selected for the challenge. The test will consist 
       in two step~: first the code(s) will be scanned (on demand analysis) 
       then used as intended (on-access analysis).

   4.- Any participant will have first to announce what effect/attack he intends
       to perform. The board will decide whether this attack is admissible or 
       not. An admissible attack is an attack which affect availability, 
       integrity and/or confidentiality of the system and/or the data (data 
       system, user data...).

   5.- Any participant will have to write a short technical summary of his 
       attack(s) which will be published on the iAWACS website. He will have to
       present his attack(s) during the contest debriefing. A copy of its code 
       will be given to the organizers of the challenge.

For fairness purposes, no participants working for any AV company or any 
company sharing common interest with AV companies, will be allowed to 
participate. Any participant will thus have to sign an assessment form 
confirming he is not working for such companies.
  
The organizers of iAWACS 2010 and of the PWN2KILL challenge have selected the 
following antivirus software:
   -- Avast
   -- AVG
   -- Avira
   -- BitDefender
   -- DrWeb
   -- FSecure
   -- GData
   -- Kasperky 
   -- McAfee
   -- Microsoft AV
   -- NOD 32
   -- Norton Symantec
   -- Trend Micro
  
Only commercial licences will be tested -- in other words they will be 
anonymously bought in public stores/website (no demo or free version). 
The antivirus will be updated right before the beginning of the challenge.

The organizers will publish a technical summary of the results once validated 
by the contest board. No communication will be done directly towards the AV 
vendors. Only a technical communication and press conference will be organized 
during the iAWACS event. A technical summary will be available on the iAWACS 
website. The complete data and codes collected will be communicated only to the
French CERT-A for analysis and feedbacks. No code will be neither published nor
distributed.

Any participant is free to communicate later on about his test/code/attack 
performed during the contest. In this case, iAWACS organizers are not 
responsible for that communication.
