Non-zero sum games and survivable malware

Abstract

There has been much recent work in the area of beneficial mobile agents and malicious mobile agents such as cryptoviruses. We show that by making a cryptovirus a distributed algorithm, and by utilizing PKI, mix-nets, and public bulletin boards, novel malware attacks are possible. In particular, a distributed cryptovirus attack is presented that forces the victim to become a player in a nonzero sum game under the threat of sensitive information disclosure. The attack is modeled as a nonzero sum game wherein the rules are enforced by cryptographic protocols. It is shown that the optimal strategy for the host machine involves the extension of the life of the payload even after it is discovered on the victim's machine. This therefore extends both the life and decision capability of the virus. The existence of this attack demonstrates the plausibility of survivable malware in public networks.