Master of Science in Engineering: Computer Security June 2020 The Development and Effectiveness of Malware Vaccination : An Experiment Oskar Eliasson Lukas Ädel Faculty of Computing, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden This thesis is submitted to the Faculty of Computing at Blekinge Institute of Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering: Computer Security. The thesis is equivalent to 20 weeks of full time studies. The authors declare that they are the sole authors of this thesis and that they have not used any sources other than those listed in the bibliography and identified as references. They further declare that they have not submitted this thesis at any other institution to obtain a degree. Contact Information: Author(s): Oskar Eliasson E-mail:
[email protected] Lukas Ädel E-mail:
[email protected] University advisor: Professor of Computer Engineering, Håkan Grahn Department of Computer Science Faculty of Computing Internet : www.bth.se Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone : +46 455 38 50 00 SE–371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden Fax : +46 455 38 50 57 Abstract Background. The main problem that our master thesis is trying to reduce is mal- ware infection. One method that can be used to accomplish this goal is based on the fact that most malware does not want to get caught by security programs and are actively trying to avoid them. To not get caught malware can check for the existence of security-related programs and artifacts before executing malicious code and depending on what they find, they will evaluate if the computer is worth in- fecting.