A Distributed Approach against Computer Viruses Inspired by the Immune System ∗

More than forty thousands computer viruses have appeared so far since the first virus. Six computer viruses on average appear every day. Enormous expansion of the computer network opened a thread of explosive spread of computer viruses. In this paper, we propose a distributed approach against computer virus using the computer network that allows distributed and agent-based approach. Our system is composed of an immunity-based system similar to the biological immune system and recovery system similar to the recovery mechanism by cell division. The immunity-based system recognizes “non-self” (which includes computer viruses) using the “self” information. The immunity-based system uses agents similar to an antibody, a natural killer cell and a helper T-cell. The recover system uses a copy agent which sends an uninfected copy to infected computer on LAN, or receives from uninfected computer on LAN. We implemented a prototype with JAVATM known as a multi-platform language. In experiments, we confirmed that the proposed system works against some of existing computer viruses that can infect programs for MS–DOSTM . key words: computer virus, immune system, agent, self-