When Viruses Infect Worms 96
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the it's-malware-all-the-way-down dept.
from the it's-malware-all-the-way-down dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Bitdefender reports that there exist viruses which, when they encounter other viruses, will merge and combine effects so that they create a new virus. 'A virus infects executable files; and a worm is an executable file. If the virus reaches a PC already compromised by a worm, the virus will infect the exe files on that PC — including the worm. When the worm spreads, it will carry the virus with it. Although this happens unintentionally, the combined features from both pieces of malware will inflict a lot more damage than the creators of either piece of malware intended. While most file infectors have inbuilt spreading mechanisms, just like Trojans and worms (spreading routines for RDP, USB, P2P, chat applications, or social networks), some cannot replicate or spread between computers. And it seems a great idea to “outsource” the transportation mechanism to a different piece of malware (i.e. by piggybacking a worm).'"
Wow! Old news is so exciting! (Score:2, Informative)
Remember back in the days when BackOrifice used to come with a CIH payload?
Context Switching in Viruses and Bacteria (Score:2, Informative)
Context switching in biology allows viruses to infest genomes of many sizes.
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/GeneMachine/51835
Mamaviruses have a Sputnik virus that reporgrams the Mamavirus which reporgrams an amoeba.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamavirus
CRISPR is how bacteria learn to modify their immune system to respond to viruses.
CRISPR may be the first example of a memory system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR
This memory may have lead to a bio side effect called intelligence.
Combined with quorum sensing a truly intelligent multicellular system may evolve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing
Chomsky may have to change his definition of languages to include context switching.
Context Switching is what computers do poorly due to determinism.
Without context switching artificial intelligence may never be possible?