Adam Young, Moti Yung
ISBN: 0-764-54975-8
Paper
416 pages
February 2004

This book describes recent discoveries on how to design advanced malicious computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. The area in question has recently been dubbed Crypotovirology, since it involves the application of modern cryptographic techniques to subvert computer systems, as opposed to using cryptography to secure computer systems. The attacks come in the form of sophisticated viral payloads and Trojan horse programs, which are specifically tailored for their hosts. The attacks that are described encompass everything from denial-of-service, to secure and anonymous theft of information, as well as attacks on smart card devices, which leak private keys securely and subliminally to the attacker.

The book also provides warning and thwarting tools for prevention. Information extortion attacks which are mounted by Cryptoviruses that utilize public key cryptography. Information theft attacks, which utilize anonymous channels such, as mix-nets which significantly minimize the chances that the perpetrator is apprehended. Information theft attacks, which utilize recent advances in computationally, secure Private Information Retrieval techniques. Applications of non-zero sum Game Theory to develop survivable malware Kleptographic attacks on cryptosystems and smart-card devices which leak private keys securely and subliminally to the attacker Tools and measures for thwarting a cryptovirology attack The book gives pseudo code for these algorithms and references to the original works for further reference. Actual source-code is omitted for obvious reasons.