Once installed, some start sending premium SMS messages, thus fraudulently charging the user's account. Others methodically encrypt all the user's files before demanding a ransom in exchange for the dicephering key. Gone are last summer's pictures.
This cyber-nuisance proves all the more annoying that sifting the wheat from the chaff is both tricky and time-consuming. "It takes three weeks to manually dissect one single malware, so obviously the process must be automated, " says Valérie Viet Triem Tong . For the last three years, the scientist has led a malware analysis project called Kharon .
Valérie Viet Triem Tong and Jean-François Lalande are associate professors at CentraleSupelec. They are also members of CIDRE research prpject-team , common with Inria, CNRS, CentraleSupelec and University of Rennes 1.
Based in Rennes, Brittany, in the heart of the French cyber security cluster , the Kharon project involves CentraleSupélec, Inria and Insa Centre Val de Loire through Cidre and Celtique , two prominent research teams in the field.
Kharon is funded by CominLabs , an IT laboratory sponsored by the French Government.