X-ware: a proof of concept malware utilizing artificial intelligence

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic growth in utilizing computational intelligence techniques for various domains. Coherently, malicious actors are expected to utilize these techniques against current security solutions. Despite the importance of these new potential threats, there remains a paucity of evidence on leveraging these research literature techniques. This article investigates the possibility of combining artificial neural networks and swarm intelligence to generate a new type of malware. We successfully created a proof of concept malware named X-ware, which we tested against the Windows-based systems. Developing this proof of concept may allow us to identify this potential threat’s characteristics for developing mitigation methods in the future. Furthermore, a method for recording the virus’s behavior and propagation throughout a file system is presented. The proposed virus prototype acts as a swarm system with a neural network-integrated for operations. The virus’s behavioral data is recorded and shown under a complex network format to describe the behavior and communication of the swarm. This paper has demonstrated that malware strengthened with computational intelligence is a credible threat. We envisage that our study can be utilized to assist current and future security researchers to help in implementing more effective countermeasures.