Cryptovirology

Cryptovirology is the study of the use of cryptology to design powerful malicious software. It attempts to make malicious attacks as sophisticated as possible by using different cryptological paradigms and increasing the anonymity of the attacks.

Another study, cryptography is the encryption component of cryptology and has been traditionally used to defend systems using encryption and public key infrastructures (PKI). Cryptovirology makes use of cryptography as a mechanism of attacking rather than defending.

The field also encompasses covert attacks in which the attacker secretly steals private information, such as private keys. It includes different types of attacks that may use viruses, worms and Trojan horses.