What AV cies think about virii courses

u remember the course proposed by galagary university to learn about virii?

Hereby an article about "IT myths: Who writes the viruses?", where Gene Hodges, president of Network Associates, claims that AV vendors had never written any virii.

The interesting part of the article is about what he thinks about galgary course:

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Full article here
Hodges also reiterated that this need to distance the anti-virus community from anybody with a history of virus writing is the reason why no companies would touch graduates from Calgary University's controversial virus writing course or anybody who has ever written viruses - whether for academic or malicious reasons.

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So the wise guy that thinks that such a course is an opportunity for is carrer should think twice...

That makes no sense at all. I am sure that's the catch all phrase to cover ass. The truth is, very few get convicted for virus writing, and the ones that were caught do not need the course anyhow. Can you picture Phalcon/Skism needing an ASM course? I think that group can teach the course.

Furthermore, before you can fight virii, you need to know how they work, and I can bet my left nut AV research has training in virus writing. It might be true AV researchers may have never written any virii, but then again, they have a responsibility. Kinda like a police officer not abusing power.

That's kind of weird. You would think that someone who has the knowledge of how a virus is created would be the best for fighting them.

Am old school and still think that in order to solve a problem you need to know how the problem was developed or else you would be fighting a lossing battle.

Just my thought on things...

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Originally posted here by cutty
That's kind of weird. You would think that someone who has the knowledge of how a virus is created would be the best for fighting them.

Am old school and still think that in order to solve a problem you need to know how the problem was developed or else you would be fighting a lossing battle.

Just my thought on things...

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Anyway fighting virii is a lossing batle ... :(

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That's kind of weird. You would think that someone who has the knowledge of how a virus is created would be the best for fighting them.

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Naw, not everybody that knows how to write a virus wants to fight them. In fact, it can be on contrary. NuKe, the creator of MANY virii made it clear he wanted to infect as many and as stealthily as possible. If you read 40Hex and the virus writing guides you will see what I mean. Oh yeah, virus source code have little blurbs of narcissism thrown in.

edit: oops, it was Dark Angel who said it, and here's the quote:

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Virii are wondrous creations written for the sole purpose of spreading and
destroying the systems of unsuspecting fools. This eliminates the systems
of simpletons who can't tell that there is a problem when a 100 byte file
suddenly blossoms into a 1,000 byte file. Duh. These low-lifes do not
deserve to exist, so it is our sacred duty to wipe their hard drives off
the face of the Earth. It is a simple matter of speeding along survival of
the fittest.

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Hey networker you have a valid point. I just figured you would be worst off fighting virii without any prior knowledge.

albn thanks for that little quote, it has put a little humour into my day. Besides, if it wasn't for some of these guys where would AV companies be now. So, it's these guys that make us paranoid about security and hence the need for AV companies. Without them AV companies would seize to exist.

Guidance..