A system includes hosts that may be infected with mobile logic. One type of mobile logic is a worm, which can be a process that is capable of causing a (possibly evolved) copy of itself to execute on one or more hosts of the system. An infected host of the system can infect other hosts based on criteria, such as targeting, visibility, vulnerability, or infectability of the other hosts. A worm can be represented as a Turing Machine whose state can be determined using computational methods. A worm can be emulated in the system to determine worm detection capabilities of the system. Emulating the worm can allow the system to be tested with less negative impact than using the actual worm.
Patent Number: 7,814,550
Date Issued: October 12 2010