Proof of Concept

"Stardust" is only a proof of concept, not an actual virus.

OK.

Then what is a "proof of concept."?

I found a very interesting doc, "The Future of Malware" by Stephen Trilling and Carey Nachenberg at Symantec Corporation.

I found two "proof of concept" in it.

1. "We will, however, continue to see new “proof of concept” viruses designed to attack various macro and scripting systems."

2. "In general, we expect growth in this area. It is likely that a large number of proof of concept client-server Trojans will be built in the coming months and years. We expect that actual attacks will also increase."

It was EICAR Proceedings 1999.