Researchers Hid Malware Inside of Neural Network Models

guest · Jul 23, 2021

Researchers Hid Malware Inside an AI's 'Neurons' And It Worked Scarily Well
In a proof-of-concept, researchers reported they could embed malware in up to half of an AI model's nodes and still obtain very high accuracy
July 22, 2021
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvz...ide-an-ais-neurons-and-it-worked-scarily-well

Neural networks could be the next frontier for malware campaigns as they become more widely used, according to a new study.

According to the study, which was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Monday, malware can be embedded directly into the artificial neurons that make up machine learning models in a way that keeps them from being detected. The neural network would even be able to continue performing its set tasks normally.

“As neural networks become more widely used, this method will be universal in delivering malware in the future,” the authors, from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, write.
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Using real malware samples, their experiments found that replacing up to around 50 percent of the neurons in the AlexNet model⁠—a benchmark-setting classic in the AI field⁠—with malware still kept the model’s accuracy rate above 93.1 percent. The authors concluded that a 178MB AlexNet model can have up to 36.9MB of malware embedded into its structure without being detected using a technique called steganography.

The new research, on the other hand, envisions a future where an organization may bring in an off-the-shelf machine learning model for any given task (say, a chat bot, or image detection) that could be loaded with malware while performing its task well enough not to arouse suspicion.
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Olejnik also warned that the malware extraction step in the process could also risk detection. Once the malware hidden in the model was compiled into, well, malware, then it could be picked up. It also might just be overkill.

"But it's also a problem because custom methods to extract malware from the [deep neural network] model means that the targeted systems may already be under attacker control," he said "But if the target hosts are already under attacker control, there's a reduced need to hide extra malware."
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arXiv: EvilModel: Hiding Malware Inside of Neural Network Models

Delivering malware covertly and detection-evadingly is critical to advanced malware campaigns. In this paper, we present a method that delivers malware covertly and detection-evadingly through neural network models.
[...] no suspicious are raised by antivirus engines in VirusTotal, which verifies the feasibility of this method.
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EASTER · Jul 23, 2021

Now that IS scary

Keep us posted @mood to any new developments or research announcements on this.

They keep pushing the envelope closer to the End Game. (Game Over)

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Researchers Hid Malware Inside of Neural Network Models

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