Lena Yu
Lena Yu, also known as LambdaMamba, is the founder and Chief Researcher of World Cyber Health and Malware Village. She also launched the Malware Monsters project (Malmons). Lena has presented at CARO, Virus Bulletin, BSides Vancouver, and other conferences. Additionally, she has hosted Malware Village and organized contests at DEF CON, HITCON, BSides London, and more.
Before transitioning to malware analysis, Lena worked as a low-level developer specializing in computer architecture and RISC-V Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) research.
Session
Malware is constantly evolving, much like biological viruses that adapt over time in response to our defenses. I like to analyze malware as if it were a living entity, driven by the ultimate goal of survival. Just as Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT) is used to study biological evolution, what if we applied it to malware evolution as well?
In this talk, I’ll explore how EGT can help us understand why malware behaves the way it does and how different strategies shape its evolution. From one-shot viral outbreaks like the ILOVEYOU worm, to stealthy shape-shifters like Simile, adaptive threats like Emotet, and symbiotic threats like CrackedCantil, we’ll examine how attackers develop survival tactics—some aggressive, some deceptive, and some even collaborative.
And just like in nature, where species must adapt or go extinct, I’ll discuss how defenders can use EGT principles and lessons from nature to anticipate future malware threats and build stronger defenses.