What is a cryptovirus?
In computer security, a cryptovirus is defined as a computer virus that contains and uses a public key. Usually the public key belongs to the author of the virus, though there are other possibilities as well. For instance, a virus or worm may generate and use its own key pair at run-time [YY96a,Yo03]. Cryptoviruses may utilize secret sharing to hide information and may communicate by reading posts from public bulletin boards [YY96a]. Cryptotrojans and cryptoworms are the same as cryptoviruses, except they are Trojan horses and worms, respectively. Note that under this definition, a virus that uses a symmetric key and not a public key is not a cryptovirus (this is particularly relevant in the case of polymorphic viruses).
