One virus writer 'responsible for 70 percent of infections'

[MrLinus]

So we have an ever improving understanding of how computers and software can evolve.

He/she is very correct. The saying "Necessity is the mother of all invention" is an apt variation of it. Look at what gaming has done to hardware. The reality is if we didn't have all these "bad guys" a lot of the security devices that exist today wouldn't because there'd be no or little need for them.

[jinxy]

Hacking
The Art Of Exploitation.

By Jon Erickson

[foxyloxley]

Originally posted here by kryptonic
why would you create a virus in the first place?

Because they can...................

As the criminal side escalates its presence in the virus / exploit arena, I can see a time when there will be NO arrests of people for the writing, as those involved will know the consequence of talking out of school (no pun intended)

The ONLY action seen by ourselves and Joe Public will be the rash of system failures that occur. I cannot foresee the end to virii and the related problems, as I feel that crime has got a new way to make money..........Pay up - or lose your data............

Further education is not the answer IMHO, as these little ba57ards have no respect for themselves, let alone others. :****tards: [edit]Oh dear; no emoticon for that one[/edit]

As for the criminal input........we've ALWAYS had crime, we just have to keep on fighting back.

[gothic_type]

You also have to remember that you don't always write a program like a virus with malicious intents. Sometimes you want to do something just to prove to yourself that you can. (I'm not saying that's what this guy did).

I've never written anything that could seriously be thought of as a virus, but I've often wondered how I would go about it, and wanted to be able to do it. And as to why these people don't work on os security or have programming jobs instead of writing viruses...I believe there are several answers to that question:

1) Many virus writers probably do have perfectly respectable jobs as programmers, etc.
2) Not everyone who wants a job gets it; if you're a good programmer, but can't get a job because the it market's full, you may be slightly bitter about it
3) Maybe they're too young or don't have the qualifications necessary to get a "decent" job.

There are probably many more reasons than those above.

ac

[Spyder32]

Amazing, yes. Something to brag about? No. Achieving world peace or stopping a war is something you can brag about. Writing 70% of the year's computer viruses isn't IMO.

[TheSpecialist]

Who cares... if you've done something just for the sole purpose of braging about it then obviously it wasn't about world peace at all.

[Spyder32]

TheSpecialist: I think you missed my point.

[umbobo1]

So sad, dont people have a better way to spend their time?

[s3nate]

Wow, Just to add to my other post...lol i reformatted my other comp and once i connected it to the net for about 5 min...i go the sasser virus...so then i just reformatted it again lol

-S3nate

[nihil]

You also have to remember that you don't always write a program like a virus with malicious intents. Sometimes you want to do something just to prove to yourself that you can. (I'm not saying that's what this guy did).

I think that used to be true. I can remember back to the days when viruses were boot sector or file infectors, and there was a period of time when the "competition" seemed to be who could write the smallest virus. These HAD to be non-malicious, as there just wasn't room for a payload.


Also, a lot of trojans/worms have very similar properties to legitimate remote management and software distribution tools.

IMHO it all boils down to purpose and intent, and I do not think that these guys' intentions were in any way honourable, or educational

just my thoughts