In terms of scalability, SpyProxy -- which the group plans to distribute free of charge -- was designed to handle multiple users on clusters of workstations. According to Moshchuk, a single-CPU device can process roughly 82,000 page requests in one day, which he estimated as sufficient coverage for approximately 800 users per machine. A quad-core machine could reasonably be expected to protect several thousand users in a single organization, he said.
One limitation of SpyProxy: it works more effectively on sites that contain larger volumes of static content such as text, although it is taxed to scan applications that behave similarly to general purpose software programs, the researcher said.
Another problem is that the tool sometimes struggles to determine when a page or application has completely finished loading, and when to pass content along to the end-user, which could lead to additional latency concerns.
However, in a modified state where the tool is set to eliminate unnecessary scanning by allowing sites that have already been tested -- but which have not been changed since a previous download -- to flow through without constraint, or to allow pages with only static content to flow to the user unabated, the amount of time needed to allow SpyProxy to run its course drops to only 600 milliseconds, according to Moshchuk.
Another manner to speed the downloading process and overall performance of the tool could be to deliver different portions of sites that are being tested as individual scans are being completed.
Moshchuk said that the UW team hopes that other security researchers will apply similar techniques in addressing malware with active detection, and promised that it will also continue to expand and improve SpyProxy.
"This isn't about building a perfect security tool. We really care about exploring the technique further," Moshchuk said. "But we think that people can already begin using the tool without affecting the end-user experience too much."
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