Exactly what are fingerprints?

[swagger]

Would someone mind point me to or explaining exactly what fingerprints are? I know from the searching I've done already, that they are file signatures for specific threats that are known... Is there anything more to this that? Thanks in advance!

swagger

[exile360]

I believe (but I don't know as I'm not a developer) that it also relates to "infection patterns" that the program looks for to identify threats. For example, Vundo/Virtumonde generally creates a locked (and often rootkit hidden) file with a random name consisting of 8 alphanumeric characters and has a registry entry with the same info as the name of the file in a specific place in the registry. I believe this would be an example of a "fingerprint" as well as a component of the heuristics engine of MBAM.