Researchers demonstrate that malware can be concealed in neural networks

In our pursuit to develop better software that powers our everyday lives, we seem to have forgotten that malware can be hidden in almost anything that runs on a computer.

According to a recent study, malware can be embedded into the neural networks of a machine learning model so effectively that it cannot be detected, all while the neural network continues to operate normally.

Malware-embedded neural network model had just 1% more errors

A research paper published recently by Zhi Wang, Chaoge Liu, and Xiang Cui presented a method of hiding 36.9MB of malware in a 178MB AlexNet model designed to classify images.

The malware-embedded model was able to perform within a 1% error margin of the original malware-free image classification model.

The malware embedded in the model also managed to avoid detection.

Malware remained undetected by 50 common antivirus programs

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