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A polymorphic engine (sometimes called mutation engine or mutating engine) is a software component that uses polymorphic code to alter the payload while preserving the same functionality. Polymorphic engines are used almost exclusively in malware , with the purpose of being harder for antivirus software to detect.
Polymorphic algorithms make it difficult for such software to recognize the offending code because it constantly mutates. Malicious programmers have sought to protect their encrypted code from this virus-scanning strategy by rewriting the unencrypted decryption engine (and the resulting encrypted payload) each time the virus or worm is propagated.
This differs from polymorphic code, where the polymorphic engine can not rewrite its own code. Metamorphic code is used by some viruses when they are about to infect new files, and the result is that the next generation will never look like current generation.
Email spoofing is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address. [1] The term applies to email purporting to be from an address which is not actually the sender's; mail sent in reply to that address may bounce or be delivered to an unrelated party whose identity has been faked.
To enable polymorphic code, the virus has to have a polymorphic engine (also called "mutating engine" or "mutation engine") somewhere in its encrypted body. See polymorphic code for technical detail on how such engines operate. [68] Some viruses employ polymorphic code in a way that constrains the mutation rate of the virus significantly.
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In hacking, a shellcode is a small piece of code used as the payload in the exploitation of a software vulnerability.It is called "shellcode" because it typically starts a command shell from which the attacker can control the compromised machine, but any piece of code that performs a similar task can be called shellcode.
SMEG is an acronym for Simulated Metamorphic Encryption Generator. Messages within the two viruses Pile created with it, SMEG.Pathogen and SMEG.Queeg, suggest that it is also an allusion to the word smeg, used as a profanity by characters in the British TV series Red Dwarf. [1] The engine is designed to be used to add polymorphism to viruses.