Viz Vista by Ed Tittel

A rootkit is a particularly stealthy and nasty form of malware designed to take over complete control of a system (root level access in UNIX terms means "access to everything, no holds barred"). Rootkits seek to hide from detection via standard operating system based security mechanisms, and require special tools for detection and cleanup.

As somebody who's been researching and writing about malware since 2003, I've come to recognize Danish information security firm Secunia as a reliable source of good intelligence about what's happening on the threat landscape. When a malware alert, proof of concept exploit, or news story shows up with their name on it, I will invariably pay attention. That's why I was very interested to read in a a recent issue of PCWorld (November 11, 2008) about the Secunia PSI vulnerability scanner.