On the Evolution of Malware Species

Vasileios Vlachos; Christos Ilioudis; Alexandros Papanikolaou

Global Security, Safety and Sustainability & e-Democracy. 7th International and 4th e-Democracy, Joint Conferences, ICGS3/e-Democracy 2011, Thessaloniki, Greece, August 24-26, 2011, Revised Selected Papers

Research Article

On the Evolution of Malware Species

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@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-33448-1_8,
    author={Vasileios Vlachos and Christos Ilioudis and Alexandros Papanikolaou},
    title={On the Evolution of Malware Species},
    proceedings={Global Security, Safety and Sustainability \& e-Democracy. 7th International and 4th e-Democracy, Joint Conferences, ICGS3/e-Democracy 2011, Thessaloniki, Greece, August 24-26, 2011, Revised Selected Papers},
    proceedings_a={ICGS3 \& E-DEMOCRACY},
    year={2012},
    month={10},
    keywords={malware computer virus phylogeny cybercrime malware writers},
    doi={10.1007/978-3-642-33448-1_8}
}

Vasileios Vlachos
Christos Ilioudis
Alexandros Papanikolaou
Year: 2012
On the Evolution of Malware Species
ICGS3 & E-DEMOCRACY
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-33448-1_8

Vasileios Vlachos¹^,*, Christos Ilioudis²^,*, Alexandros Papanikolaou¹^,*

1: Technological Educational Institute of Larissa
2: Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki

*Contact email: vsvlachos@teilar.gr, iliou@it.teithe.gr, alpapanik@teilar.gr

Abstract

Computer viruses have evolved from funny artifacts which were crafted mostly to annoy inexperienced users to sophisticated tools for industrial espionage, unsolicited bulk email (), piracy and other illicit acts. Despite the steadily increasing number of new malware species, we observe the formation of monophyletic clusters. In this paper, using public available data, we demonstrate the departure of the democratic virus writing model in which even moderate programmers managed to create successful virus strains to an entirely aristocratic ecosystem of highly evolved malcode.

Keywords: malware computer virus phylogeny cybercrime malware writers

Published: 2012-10-08

: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33448-1_8