Survival of the Stealthiest: Evolving Low-Entropy Ransomware via Genetic Algorithms

Traditional ransomware deployment often relies on massive encryption procedure, triggering immediate detection by modern defense systems. This work introduces a paradigm shift in cryptographic attacks by framing ransomware execution as a Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE) optimization problem. This approach addresses the persistence gap observed in modern threats, where attacks aim to remain undercover for hours rather than minutes. Using a Genetic Algorithm (GA), we optimize data encryption under a hard constraint on the statistical deviation from baseline system activity. We demonstrate that our evolved attack patterns can evade behavioral monitors under fingerprinting techniques. Our results suggest that search-based methods provide a powerful framework for generating evasive malware, highlighting an emerging challenge for automated software defense. Github: https://github.com/Efrat-lev/Survival-of-the-Stealthiest