Computer systems continue to be at risk of attack by malicioussoftware that are attached to email. Email has been determined to bethe cause of spread of 80% of the computer virus infections. Millionsof dollars are lost yearly due to the damage brought by the maliciousemails. Popular approaches towards the defense against the maliciousemails are the use of antivirus scanners and server based filters.Further, state of the art methods are being employed to enhancesecurity against the malicious programs. However, despite effortsbeing subjected towards the protection of personal information inemails, the malicious programs continue to pose significant threat.The paper presented elaborates the application of Runtime MonitoringTechnology to establish a channel through which malicious email canbe tracked. The system is designed in way that it gathers themalicious emails to determine whether they are suspicious, unknown orneutral. The application of Runtime monitoring helps in the reducingchances of spread of emails that are determined to be suspicious andwith the likelihood to cause threat to users. Patterns were developedin Rules4business.com to facilitate the detection of threats andapplying rules to the identified rules validation while at the sametime tracking them. The runtime monitoring application system entailsthe detection of the malicious emails by the assessment of thepattern in which they are sent and qualifying them into differentstates identified as neutral, suspicious or unknown. The applicationof the system is efficient since it collects data that serves todetermine whether or not the particular email are malicious. Throughthe application of the system, it would be possible to eliminatethreats posed to private individuals and corporations emanating fromthe malicious emails.
Conclusion and Future Research
Malicious emails continue to cause a significant challenge because ofthe threat that they present. Measures that have been imposed to helpin dealing with the malicious have not been successful. Potentialthreat imposed by the malicious emails adjust to the inventions thatare introduced to help in dealing with the menace adjusts to themeasures that are imposed. Even though the complete eradication ofprograms that are malicious appears to be a difficult task, theinformation possessed regarding the availability of the maliciousprograms is crucial in limiting the threat that exists. The Runtimemonitoring system was developed to facilitate the detection and theclassification of the emails into identified states such as neutral,unknown and suspicious. The ability to detect such emails isessential as the first step toward ensuring that private individualsand organizations are protected from the potential dangers that arisefrom the availability of the email. As cases of malicious attempts byemail continue to evolve and overcome the security steps that havebeen imposed, the Runtime monitoring system would be endowed with theability to track the threats and deal with them. It would be possibleto address the threats that are imposed by the malicious emails.Further, through the application of the runtime monitoring system,private individuals and organizations would be well placed to dealwith the dangers and minimize the costs to be incurred due to theexecution of the threats that are known. The development andvalidation of the rules that help detect and classify threats serveas the first step toward management of the potential threatspresented by the malicious emails. Further, it was possible toperform deterministic runtime monitoring rules for the validation.The activity was executed through the building of the Hidden MarkovModel at the learning phase followed by the performance of runtimemonitoring with the data that is hidden.
In future, the project would be migrated to a given direction suchthat the program can take complete control over spam email to fishout emails that are suspect. Further, with the development oftechnology, it is essential to have an email that is endowed with thecapability of dealing with emails that escape firewalls. The runtimemonitoring system would be helpful when it comes to dealing with thethreats that are imminent for identification, validation, andexecution of the necessary measures to deal with the issue. However,it is crucial to acknowledge the technological advances that arewitnessed. The advancements further increase the ability of maliciousemails to deal with security steps that have been imposed. Such isreason enough to explore measures that seek to adapt to the threatsstipulated in the malicious emails. It opens ground for futureresearch in a bid to deal with the continued threats. The frameworkfor the Runtime monitoring system allows for ease when it comes tocategorization of emails that could be containing the potentialthreat. Different angles exist for future research where rather thanconducting the detection and validation, another system canfacilitate the execution of curtailing the threat. It would helpreduce the imminent dangers posed by the availability of the emailsand the components that it could be attached. Such a measure wouldfacilitate curbing the threat while enhancing flexibility in dealingwith the malicious emails.