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A statistical model for undecidable viral detection

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Abstract

This paper presents a statistical model of the malware detection problem. Where Chess and White (An undetectable computer virus. In: Virus Bulletin Conference, 2000) just partially addressed this issue and gave only existence results, we give here constructive results of undetectable malware. We show that any existing detection techniques can be modelled by one or more statistical tests. Consequently, the concepts of false positive and non detection are precisely defined. The concept of test simulability is then presented and enables us to gives constructive results how undetectable malware could be developped by an attacker. Practical applications of this statistical model are proposed. Finally, we give a statistical variant of Cohen’s undecidability results of virus detection.

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Correspondence to Eric Filiol.

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Filiol, E., Josse, S. A statistical model for undecidable viral detection. J Comput Virol 3, 65–74 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11416-007-0041-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11416-007-0041-5

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