Hacking Exposed Malware & Rootkits: Security Secrets and Solutions, Second Edition, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 6

THE FUTURE OF ROOTKITS

As with other technologies today, rootkits are developing and evolving. As new versions of target operating systems are released, rootkit developers must find a way to keep up and adapt to the changing operating system environment. They must understand the different techniques needed to take that new operating system hostage. This is an important endeavor because rootkits give attackers the upper hand in maintaining their unauthorized access.

We’ve discussed the various attacks and methods rootkits use and how rootkits modify the user environment to fool the user into believing the attacker is not present. Rootkits have evolved into a more complicated technology that is harder to mitigate, just as simple viruses ...