Malware Authors Leave Their Fingerprints On Their Work, Black Hat Researcher Says At the rate that malware is proliferating, it sometimes seems impossible to tell one bit of malicious code from the next. But according to a security researcher here, malware authors leave “fingerprints” all over their work, which could aid security professionals in stopping them. At a session on malware attribution, HB Gary researcher Greg Hoglund outlined a wide variety of methods that can be used to identify the source of malware, which can be extremely useful in determining how to defend against it.