The Perfect Virus??

This is just a general question as i often wonder if this is pluasible or even if it is possible.

Can a perfect virus be created??

I ask this because a virus is undetected (if written in a different code) until someone says, thats a virus and then it gets put on your antivirus list ect. like this worm thats going around. it cant be stopped yet cause its never been seen before, but once they figure it out it will be cured.

so, if a virii was made, so that it wasnt detected by and antivirus software yet, and the first thing it does is disable the way antivirus picks it up. then carries on its damage. would it be unstoppable. i know there would need to be different versions for each program (AntiVirus) but maybe it could be a larger file with all of it in one.

it just makes me think that it is impossible cause its never been done before. i am not posting this to encourage people to make virii and i dont want to make it. i was curious at something that seems quiet plausable, yet not been done so deemed impossible.

any comments

AI, hmm, there is no such thing and there never will be. this is because we cannot give free will to anything. sure, the programming could be good and extensive and given every situation possible. but in the end it is still following code, puched into it. so, i got a little off topic but AI seems to bring back many mant dreams.

Computers cannot make mistakes, that is because they cannot think. - i got this off someones Sig off AO. sorry i borrowed it but it does mean something. if not, then i dont know where i got it ;)

A perfect virus would be able to read and learn and defend itself.....but it wouldn't destroy it's enviroment, will-to-live and all, and it wouldn't let the User know it was there....Will-to-live again...so....the perfect Virus would be AI but you'd never notice it...so.....it would be pointless...lol....
Your answer: No.

- Noia
:D

You know I remember seeing a demo of a trojan in Dec 2001 at some .mil conference which did something like this, but I can't remember what it was called - but it simulated the Firewall's interface so it looked like nothing was going on. It was actually really interesting to watch it taking out the various bits of seccy software installed, it took out the AV instantly, stopped the firewall and then set up to copy itself and move around. If anyone is genuinely interested I can dig the papers out from my office next week.

However, for me the *perfect* virus would go through and randomly delete 70% of my email, especially those encouraging me to buy pump devices to extend a piece of anatomy that I don't even have. Then it would turn go online and order me coffee and a pizza ; )

What if someone had already made one and we just don't know about it... What if those extra-terrestrial beings really do exist and are over a billion times smarter than us, and infected all of the operating systems the second that they were made? But for us humans, it's not possible yet. But maybe sometime in the future.......

who need aliens to do that, when we have microsoft :D

To be honest, I think the perfect virus already exists. It's called new software. Too many times have I installed some program from Company X and it caused some severe error in whatever.dll or caused my computer to perform an illegal operation and crash. You got all these companies writing software with no consideration for other programs you may already have installed on your computer. And the best part is, no virus can even begin to compete with the human ego. The idea that somehow, someway you'll eventually get the goddamn thing to work right. To be honest, over the years, I've done more damage to my computer than any virus ever has.

but thats different. virii has a purpose, humans are just stupid, and its not just you its everyone :)

Well, a new virus is always perfect until its signature is included in the antivirus program. This might mean some days, depending on how fast it spreads. Let's think now that we have a virus which knows how to put down some AV, like the one englishgirl1 told about. Add some polymorphism, and adaptative functions. Perhaps, it could just divide itself in 2 different viruses.. You would have random changes happening to the virus, like mutations. These would be spread through generations, and the variants which can be caught by av, with signatures already known, would be eliminated, resulting in a process like natural selection.
Well, I don't claim that it woul all work, just guessing a bit.. and exercising my imagination..

perfect virus to me is not a bad virus, but the idea of a good virus.

Forget doing damage with a virus, what about a virus that finds holes and fixes them as it goes. You could wirte one good virus to fight a bad virus, it could undo the bad woork the evil virus has done.

So what does everyone think about the idea of good virus them?

SittingDuck

it sounds like you watch too much movies. there no such thing as a good virus. in my opinion, a good virus is a patch.

The only reason why there is no good virus, is because no one has writen one! (I could be wrong on that one, but I have never heard of that one)

Im not the kind of person who would go releasing viruses but, i do believe in education and i while ago me and a friend of mine made r progrmmed polymorphic virus that could learn the traits of other virus found on the computer it infects. It might be smart but not always effiecient you need to programmin in assembler to get an efficient start but when it take to many other virus on board it gets bit and sluggish! :)

My idea of the perfect virus is one that doesn't exist ;) However, I don't believe one can exist, no matter how perfect the code is. All software has some bugs in it, and it can't be made perfectly to do exactly what it's intent is for. So, the answer is No.

Look at the way AV detects a virus. Usually through some kind of pattern matching. Eg, the E-mail attachment for virus X is always Y KB is size && ends in .scr && is named A | B | C....etc. Or, virus X modifies registry key P upon execution. That's the kind of stuff that you usually get in your weekly DAT file update. A stateful based in-line hardware AV device may do a little bit statefull examination and bit pattern matching when it's still on the wire. Example.... Virus X will always display a bite pattern of 11011010 00001100 11100101 01011100 in bytes 48-51 after the header. Still, this is based on a "known" virus pattern. After Day 0, you simply have to apply the update. Packet filtering firewalls can catch them when they always come in on a particular port (Saphire anyone?). So again, after it's been IDed, and information published about it, if you get hit, it's because your stupid. Finally, there is Host Based Intrusion Detection which will monitor the behavior of your machine, and deny system resources to something that appears to be acting maliciously. Though Code Red evaded just about everything on Day 0, a well baselined and configured HIDS prevented it from eating any of my critical servers. There are lots of other detection methods, but you get the idea.

So how to write the perfect virus? Well, it would have to change ports, have no fixed bit patterns, be able to change it's own file name, attack random files with it's payload. etc. Essentially it would have to be the electronic equivalent of an ameoba. Difficult indeed. Personally, if I were determined to write a virus, I wouldn't write it as a single piece of code. I'd break it into multiple blocks of benign code that would only activate when all present on the same system. Then I'd come up with some kind of dissemination method. Naturally, you'd want to "spread the blame" and disseminate from several different sources. Although for good vectoring you'd want to increase your likelyhood of getting as many machines as possible to self assemble all your blocks of code. Now you've got to do a target audience analysis. Let's pretend you want to get back at everyone who collects porcelin kittly cats. You might set up a web-site dedicated to porcelin cats. On that site you might have a down loadable catalog of all your kitty cats for sale (code block 1) You might also offer up a porcelin kitty screen saver (code block 2) and then you might have a link to an interactive site with a "save the porcelin kitty" game (code block 3 thanks to malicious active x or java). Finally, on yet another (seemingly unrelated) site you might get someone to download a macro infested spread sheet (final code block) to send money to the "Porcelin kitty foundation of lower Rwanda". Now all the pieces are in place, now the payload can be delivered. If our clueless (L)user is visiting all the porcelin kitty sites while (s)he is supposed to be at work, you've now defeated the firewall, the AV scan, the E-mail trip wire, and the inline detection system. You've probably even gotten HIDS beat for a long enough time to propagate your virus because it will only look like a routine system call and not an outside access as soon as it kicks itself off. Now..........if you managed to write a sweet enough piece of code that it meets the "ameoba" criteria outlined above, and propegates itself through truly random chunks of benign looking code, you might get a virus that isn't beaten by Day 1. Maybe.

Sounds like a lot of work just to be a pain in somebody's butt.

I like the idea of a "good" virus. and i beleive as was stated they are not here for the fact that virii have always been made malisciously. If it was a good virus, would it then be called a vacine?? EHEHEH but it woudl be kinda neat to find otu if the "good" virii would get the same negative endorsement that Hackers have from Crackers, or would they actually be accepted? just afew things to think about but i do like the idea.

Can a perfect virus be created? The answer is simple, 'No'.

Viruses have to be programmed by humans, humans are not perfect. There is bound to be a mistake somewhere which will eventually rise up and bite the virus in the behind. The next thing, even if the virus was not coded by humans and it was coded a supercomputer of some sort, like that Earth Simulator I think it was Japan that made it, with over 30 000 Gigaflops, it will never be perfect because the computer was built by humans and has imperfections, and these imperfections will be passed onto the virii code.

But hey, whats wrong with dreamin'? Yeah, it can be created..... in my imangination!

Have you read The Blue Nowhere? I like Phates little program/virus. If it were possible.

There's the proggy mentioned in this thread: http://www.antionline.com/showthread...light=gigabyte That's sorta a good virus, tho I suppose a virus by definition is malware.

There could be such thing as the perfect virus it would have to fend for itsself and make duplicates and change its own source code but this is very unlikey that any one could make this unless your a very good programmer (and i mean good)

A perfect virus may work for awhile. But not forever...eventually it would be detected. When it attaches to a file or in the case of a worm...replicates...the code in it may change and enable the virus to be deteced.