Using mobile agent results to create hard-to-detect computer viruses

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical framework for designing computer viruses that are difficult to detect using static or dynamic signatures, relying on cryptographic assumptions to enhance stealth.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of dynamic signatures and demonstrates the possibility of creating viruses that are hard to detect without cryptographic breakthroughs.

Findings

Existence of signature-free viruses with hard-to-determine dynamic signatures

Theoretical feasibility of designing undetectable viruses under cryptographic assumptions

Results are primarily of theoretical interest and may be resource-intensive in practice

Abstract

The theory of computer viruses has been studied by several authors, though there is no systematic theoretical study up to now. The long time open question in this area is as follows: Is it possible to design a signature-free (including dynamic signatures which we will define late) virus? In this paper, we give an affirmative answer to this question from a theoretical viewpoint. We will introduce a new stronger concept: dynamic signatures of viruses, and present a method to design viruses which are static signature-free and whose dynamic signatures are hard to determine unless some cryptographic assumption fails. We should remark that our results are only for theoretical interest and may be resource intensive in practice.