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BLAST ANTIVIRUS AND FIREWALL

About BlastAV

In light of recent advances in the era of calculator networking, it is now possible for Texas Instruments graphing calculators to access the internet. This introduces a new field of development...calculator security. Since the advent of CALCnet, it has been lauded as one of the best innovations in the TI community to date, and its rigid packet structure makes it virtually unexploitable. However, as someone in the ethical hacking field, I know that ANY network is exploitable, given enough time and effort. And although CALCnet doesn't support very many data types, or even very many websites, as it continues to grow and add features, any one of these may introduce vulnerabilities.

I started this project in anticipation of its necessity in the future, not because of any specific present need. In my experience I have found that antivirus companies don't work on an antivirus products until users have already been hit. I think this is a very bad attitude to take, with the integrity of user's sensitive data at stake. I personally think the best approach is to think preemptively.

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The Firewall

The first and most important feature of BlastAV is the packet firewall. Taking advantage of how the CALCnet protocol identifies the sender of a data packet, the firewall will allow you to block incoming packets from certain sources. For all of you Linux gurus, this program will function very similarly to iptables. You can add a calculator ID to a block list, and any incoming data from that calculator will be ignored.

A few additional features planned to further secure the revamp of CALCnet are:

  1. The ability to add actual IP addresses to your blocklist as well as calculator IDs, protecting your calculator from malware coming from computers as well as from other calculators. Incoming data from an IP address in your blocklist will be ignored in the same way.
  2. The ability to block not only by calculator ID/IP address, but also based on the virtual hub being used. Such an ability would allow you to create a more specific set of rules in your blocklist, choosing to block incoming data from a source IF that source is using a specific hub or program. (similar to blocking data coming in a specific port in iptables).
  3. The ability to restrict some of your own programs' access to CALCnet.
  4. A list of "threat sources", compiled by us, which identify calculator IDs and IP addresses that tend to be the source of malware.
  5. The ability to automatically connect to our server and download updates to #4.

The Scanner

BlastAV will also offer a malware scanning engine. This part of the program will search through all of your programs for tidbits of code that can cause physical damage to your calculator, cause irreversible damage to the operating system, or prank you in a way that can harm your grades (the OFFBY1 virus, for example, which makes your calculator's answers always off by 1). It works by checking your programs' byte sequence against that of known malware, contained within a "definitions file".

A few additional features planned to further secure the revamp of CALCnet are:

  1. A smart scan system allowing the scanner to detect malware, even if sections of the program have been written differently. You can customize scanner sensitivity by altering the "percentage match number". This number indicates how much of the code segment being scanned must match the malware definitions in order for an alert to be triggered. Decreasing this value makes the scanner more sensitive, but increases false positives. Increasing this value makes the scanner less sensitive.
  2. Ability to automatically connect to our server and download updates to the virus definitions file.

Downloads


Blast AntiVirus/Firewall
Malware Definitions File:
Threat Sources list:
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