A classification of viruses through recursion theorems

Abstract

We study computer virology from an abstract point of view. Viruses and worms are self-replicating programs, whose constructions are essentially based on Kleene's second recursion theorem. We show that we can classify viruses as solutions of fixed point equations which are obtained from different versions of Kleene's second recursion theorem. This lead us to consider four classes of viruses which various polymorphic features. We propose to use virus distribution in order to deal with mutations. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.