Month: September 2022

SUPER-MUTATING VIRUS. "Not only does W95/Bistro itself mutate in new generations, it also mutates the code of its host by a randomly executed code-morphing routine. In this way, the virus might generate new worms and viruses. Moreover, the virus cannot be perfectly repaired because the entry-point code area of the application could be different. The code sequence at the entry point of the host application is mutated for a range 480 bytes long." https://lnkd.in/d_2z5qc View in LinkedIn

NO UPPER LIMIT OF VIRAL EVOLUTION. "What form these new lifeforms might take is unknown and perhaps unknowable, somewhat akin to trying to predict the shape of the modern world based on observation of the Pre-Cambrian era. Our experience with computational ecosystems shows no evidence that there is any upper limit on the complexity of electronic life given sufficient time." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

TRADE-OFF. "The majority of the new viral mutations are deleterious to the virus from a natural selection perspective. Was the high mutation rate of viruses a trade off for selection for faster replication rates? Faster replication rates afforded the ability to evolve more rapidly and adapt to new niches faster in bio-viral ecosystems.” https://lnkd.in/e9KGgbm View in LinkedIn

GHOST IN THE MACHINE. "It is possible that soon we may be faced with an alien presence in our machines, a life that could combine aspects of the biological and computational world. Such organisms may be able to rewrite their own instructions, replicate at astounding rates or hide in storage for years. As electronic life moves out of a prebiotic stage, the rate of evolution may even accelerate exponentially, causing them rise towards and beyond us." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

POSSIBLE BEATS PROBABLE. "Viral evolution may not be probable or even vaguely probable but it is possible. And one is aware that given sufficient time, even the most improbable event will occur." Monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare. Or the advent of life on this planet. https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

W95/BISTRO. "If a virus or a 32-bit worm were to implement a similar morphing technique, the problem could be major. New mutations of old viruses and worms would be morphed endlessly! Thus, a virtually endless number of not-yet-detectable viruses and worms would appear without any human intervention, leading to the ultimate virus generator." https://lnkd.in/d_2z5qc View in LinkedIn

ZMIST VIRUS. "The Mistfall engine contained in the virus is capable of decompiling PE files to their smallest elements, requiring 32MB of memory. Zmist will insert itself into the code; it moves code blocks out of the way, inserts itself, regenerates code and data references (including relocation information), and rebuilds the executable. This is something that has never been seen in any previous virus." https://lnkd.in/d_2z5qc View in LinkedIn

ZMIST VIRUS "does not alter the entry point of the host. Instead, it merges with the existing code, becoming part of the instruction flow. However, the code's random location means that sometimes the virus will never receive control. If the virus does run, it will immediately launch the host as a separate process and hide the original process (if the RegisterServiceProcess() function is supported on the current platform) until the infection routine completes. Meanwhile, the virus will begin searching for files to infect." https://lnkd.in/d_2z5qc View in LinkedIn

DECOMPILING VIRUSES. "Some new MSIL viruses, such as MSIL/Gastropod, already support semi-metamorphic (permutating) code generation under the .NET Framework. Such viruses have a great advantage because they do not need to carry their own source code. Instead, viruses can simply decompile themselves to generate new binaries." https://lnkd.in/d_2z5qc View in LinkedIn

CODE BUILDER. "MSIL/Gastropod is a code-builder virus: It reconstructs its own host program with itself. This method allows the virus body to be placed to an unpredictable position within the host program." https://lnkd.in/d_2z5qc View in LinkedIn