Evolvable%20Malware

1
Evolvable Malware

• Sadia Noreen, Sahafq Murtaza, M. Zubair Shafiq,
  Muddassar Farooq
• National University of Computer and Emerging
  Sciences (FAST-NUCES)
• Next Generation Intelligent Networks Research
  Center (nexGIN RC)
• Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan

2
Citations

• Sadia Noreen, Shafaq Murtaza, M. Zubair
  Shafiq, Muddassar Farooq.
• 1. Evolvable Malware. In Proceedings of the
  Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
  Conference(GECCO), ACM Press, 2009.
• 2. Using Formal Grammar and Genetic Operators to
  Evolve Malware. In Recent Advances in Intrusion
  Detection (RAID), Springer LNCS, 2009.

3
Relevance of Computer Malware to ALife

• ALife Studies the logic of living systems in
  artificial environment
• Evolution Property of ALife
• Malware, if considered to be alive, must possess
  the fundamental property of ALife evolution.

4
Objectives

• To provide an abstract representation that maps
  all the features of malware Bagle
• To evolve the malware evolution in its true
  sense.
• To test the evolved malware using anti-virus
  software.

5
Finally Virus Created!!!
RATHER HUMAN WHOMPING!!!
6
Evolvable Malware Framework
7
Abstract Representation
Feature Description
Date The date checked by Bagle to (de)activate its process.
Application The application used to conceal Bagle
Port Number Port opened by Bagle to send or receive commands
Attachment Name of the attachment used by the Bagle
Websites Bagle contact the websites to inform about the infection
Domain Bagle ignores to email itself to the domains specified
Email Body Contains the email body of Bagle
Email Subject Specifies the subject of the email
Registry Variable Contains the name of the registry variable used by the Bagle
Virus Name Name of the Bagle shown in the task manager
File Extension File extensions to be searched in fixed directories
Process Terminated Process terminated by Bagle
Attachment Extension Specifies the extension of the attachment
P2P Propagation Names used by Bagle to copy itself to peer computers
8
Experimental Setup (2)

• GA Parameters
• Population Size500
• Crossover Rate0.75
• Mutation Rate0.005
• of Generations500

9
Experimental Results
10
Criteria Satisfied
GECCO 2009 Anonymous Reviewer Comments

• The paper is very interesting and well written
  overall and definitely worth to
• be published.
• I found the paper quite interesting. Further
  research is most welcomed.

• D The result is publishable in its own right as
  a new scientific result
• independent of the fact that the result was
  mechanically created.

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Criteria Satisfied
Polymorphic Engine Metamorphic Engines
Our Engine
Virus Code
Virus Code
Virus Code
Genetic Operators
Encryption Routine
Virus Code . . . NOP
Decryption Routine
Virus Code

• E The result is equal to or better than the most
  recent human-created
• solution to a long-standing problem for which
  there has been a
• succession of increasingly better human-created
  solutions.

12
Criteria Satisfied
Result is better than the result that was
considered as an achievement so far

• Polymorphic and metamorphic engines produce
  viruses that belong to the same
• class i.e. the evolved viruses are the variants
  of the same class e.g. Bagle.a,
• Bagle.b etc.
• The viruses produced by our engine do not belong
  to just one class i.e. the
• evolved viruses may belong to the different
  classes of malware e.g. Bagle class,
• W32.Sality etc.

F The result is equal to or better than a result
that was considered an achievement in its field
at the time it was first discovered.
13
Criteria Satisfied
Reverse Engineering of a class of malware

• Analyzing the disassembled code of a class of
  malware and extracting the
• features of our interest was a challenging
  task.
• There has always been a talk about malware
  evolution by applying genetic
• operators but there was no comprehensive
  achievement since the difficulty
• level of the problem domain was very high.

G The result solves a problem of indisputable
difficulty in its field.
14
Human Competitive?

• Evolve malware without human intervention
• Produces new variants of malware within NO TIME
  as compared to virus writer

15
Impact

• The result is of great importance in security
  research
• Antivirus product Testing against zero day
  attacks
• Evolving software