MalSEIRS: Forecasting Malware Spread Based on Compartmental Models in Epidemiology

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the Internet has brought about a myriad of benefits to almost every aspect of our daily lives. However, malware attacks have also widely proliferated, mainly aiming at legitimate network users, resulting in millions of dollars in damages if proper protection and response measures are not settled and enforced. In this context, the paper at hand proposes MalSEIRS, a novel dynamic model, to predict malware distribution in a network based on the SEIRS epidemiological model. As a result, the time-dependent rates of infection, recovery, and loss of immunity enable us to capture the complex dynamism of malware spreading behavior, which is influenced by a variety of external circumstances. In addition, we describe both offensive and defensive techniques, based on the proposed MalSEIRS model, through extensive experimentation, as well as disclosing real-life malware campaigns that can be better understood by using the suggested model.

On the Way to Automatic Exploitation of Vulnerabilities and Validation of Systems Security through Security Chaos Engineering

“…On the downside, such a change also implies the existence of ill-motivated entities that constantly try to attack connected systems to damage the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the provided online services. Such threat entities use increasingly advanced techniques, for example, based on malware campaigns [45] or threats addressed to a specific technology [46].…”