Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Symposium on Fundamentals of Computation Theory

FCT 2011: Fundamentals of Computation Theory pp 102–113Cite as

Hunting Distributed Malware with the κ-Calculus

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 6914))

Abstract

The defense of computer systems from malicious software attacks, such as viruses and worms, is a key aspect of computer security. The analogy between malicious software and biological infections suggested us to use the κ-calculus, a formalism originally developed for the analysis of biological systems, for the formalization and analysis of malicious software. By modeling the different actors involved in a malicious code attack in the κ-calculus and by simulating their behavior, it is possible to extract important information that can drive in the choice of the defense technique to apply.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Adleman, L.M.: An abstract theory of computer viruses. In: Goldwasser, S. (ed.) CRYPTO 1988. LNCS, vol. 403, pp. 354–374. Springer, Heidelberg (1990)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Bächer, P., Holz, T., Kötter, M., Wicherski, G.: Know your enemy: Tracking botnet, http://www.honeynet.org/papers/bots

  3. Bergstra, J.A., Klop, J.W.: Process algebra for synchronous communication. Information and Control 60(1-3), 109–137 (1984)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Bonfante, G., Kaczmarek, M., Marion, J.: On abstract computer virology from a recursion theoretic perspective. Journal in Computer Virology 1(3-4), 45–54 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Cardelli, L.: Brane calculi. In: Danos, V., Schachter, V. (eds.) CMSB 2004. LNCS (LNBI), vol. 3082, pp. 257–278. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Cardelli, L., Gordon, A.D.: Mobile ambients. TCS 240(1), 177–213 (2000)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Cohen, F.: Computer viruses: Theory and experiments. Computers and Security 6, 22–35 (1987)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Collection of kappa tools, http://kappalanguage.org/tools

  9. Cooke, E., Jahanian, F., McPherson, D.: The zombie roundup: Understanding, detecting, and disrupting botnets. In: SRUTI 2005, pp. 39–44 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Dagon, D., Gu, G., Lee, C.P.: A taxonomy of botnet structures. In: Botnet Detection. Advances in Information Security, vol. 36, pp. 143–164. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Dagon, D., Zou, C.C., Lee, W.: Modeling botnet propagation using time zones. In: NDSS. The Internet Society (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Danos, V., Laneve, C.: Formal molecular biology. TCS 325(1), 69–110 (2004)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Delzanno, G., Di Giusto, C., Gabbrielli, M., Laneve, C., Zavattaro, G.: The κ-lattice: Decidability boundaries for qualitative analysis in biological languages. In: Degano, P., Gorrieri, R. (eds.) CMSB 2009. LNCS, vol. 5688, pp. 158–172. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Filiol, E.: Formalisation and implementation aspects of k-ary (malicious) codes. Journal in Computer Virology 3(2), 75–86 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Ganesh, A.J., Massoulié, L., Towsley, D.F.: The effect of network topology on the spread of epidemics. In: INFOCOM, pp. 1455–1466. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Grimes, R.A.: Malicious mobile code: Virus protection for windows. O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Jacob, G., Filiol, E., Debar, H.: Formalization of viruses and malware through process algebras. In: ARES 2010, pp. 597–602. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Kephart, J.O., White, S.R.: Directed-graph epidemiological models of computer viruses. In: IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 343–361 (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Kim, J., Radhakrishnan, S., Dhall, S.K.: Measurement and analysis of worm propagation on internet network topology. In: ICCCN, pp. 495–500. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  20. McCarty, B.: Botnets: Big and bigger. IEEE Security and Privacy 1, 87–90 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. McGraw, G., Morrisett, G.: Attacking malicious code: Report to the Infosec resarch council. IEEE Software 17(5), 33–41 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Milner, R.: Communication and concurrency. Prentice Hall International, Englewood Cliffs (1989)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Prakash, B.A., Tong, H., Valler, N., Faloutsos, M., Faloutsos, C.: Virus propagation on time-varying networks: Theory and immunization algorithms. In: Balcázar, J.L., Bonchi, F., Gionis, A., Sebag, M. (eds.) ECML PKDD 2010. LNCS, vol. 6323, pp. 99–114. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. Sangiorgi, D., Walker, D.: PI-Calculus: A Theory of Mobile Processes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Wang, Q., Chen, Z., Chen, C., Pissinou, N.: On the robustness of the botnet topology formed by worm infection. In: GLOBECOM, pp. 1–6. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Zuo, Z., Zhou, M.: Some further theoretical results about computer viruses. Computer Journal 47(6), 627–633 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Informazione, Università di Bologna, Italy

    Mila Dalla Preda

  2. INRIA Rhône Alpes, Grenoble, France

    Cinzia Di Giusto

Authors
  1. Mila Dalla Preda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Cinzia Di Giusto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Postboks 1080 Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Olaf Owe  & Martin Steffen  & 

  2. Department of Informatics, University of Bergen, Postboks 7800, 5020, Bergen, Norway

    Jan Arne Telle

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Dalla Preda, M., Di Giusto, C. (2011). Hunting Distributed Malware with the κ-Calculus. In: Owe, O., Steffen, M., Telle, J.A. (eds) Fundamentals of Computation Theory. FCT 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6914. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22953-4_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22953-4_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22952-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22953-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation