Using artificial intelligence to generate test data to test malware scanner(s)

Abstract

In some examples, a server injects malicious code into a legitimate software package to create an injected package. The server uses an artificial intelligence to extract a plurality of parts from the injected package and to mutate individual parts of the plurality of parts to create mutated parts. The server assembles the mutated parts to create a mutated malware. A malware scanner determines a risk score associated with the mutated malware. Based at least in part on determining that the score satisfies a predetermined threshold, the server stores the mutated malware in a set of mutated malware and creates at least one additional mutation based on the mutated malware. After determining that a size of the set of mutated malware satisfies a requested size, the malware scanner is modified to increase detection of the malicious code in individual mutated malware in the set of mutated malware.