Malware Detection using Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Any software or file that we download from the internet has no way to verify if it is legit and does not contain a malware. An anti-virus just uses a centralised database. Building a blockchain solution around this which allows people who download any file from the internet to verify and approve that it is malicious or not is the need of the hour.In recent years, blockchain technology stands as some solution to everything due to its features like decentralization, persistency, anonymity, and auditability. The antivirus softwares detects whether a file is malicious or not and removes whichever file found malicious. These softwares try to be effective as much as their virus database allows them to be. These virus databases usually will have signatures of malicious behaviour. When a file is checked for maliciousness, its signature is checked if it matches or not with any of the existing signatures. If it is, then it is declared malicious and not allowed to download else file is quarantine or sent to lab analysis. Regarding the lab analysis and report, it depends on that particular antivirus software. Whatever can be the method of deciding whether a file is malicious or not but it takes time to analyse it, decide and add that particular file's signature to antivirus software's database within which any person would have downloaded that file. Here is where distributed and decentralized feature of blockchain is used to update the blockchain with the new malicious file's signature. By doing this every node in the network will be able to decide on whether the particular file from internet is malicious or not.