The origination of viruses and worms.

Maybe I'm a little bit of a conspiracy nut...

[ccam96]

Has anyone really wondered where viruses and worms are written? What would anyone really get by spending hours on developing a new virus or worm? Notariaty? Come on..

Does anyone else feel that these things are somehow backed , either indirectly or directly, by the security software companies? It seems to me that they come up with fixes awfully fast don't they? Sometimes within hours. Who really has any financial incentive for the existance of these malicious codes but the security software companies themselves?

Any thouhts?

[txbakers]

be careful what you say - remember the US government now has authorized spying and eavedroppiing with warrants.

And those pesky satellites up in the sky are watching YOU right now.

Before I go any further, let me close my drapes, because I hear a black helicopter outside my window. I can't see it of course.

[kwngian]

The viruses I have seen are written by email spammers that also hold an interest in affiliate's commission.

The machines they control are in thousands and you will need to block half the world just to reduce the amount of trash from them.

[Leosghost]

Most people don't "invent" new ones ..they just tinker with old ones ..all systems leave "exploits" possible ..you can't keep curiosity in boxes ..

Security companies do try to look for exploits in order to then tell you to buy their product in order to protect yourself from it "in case" ..then the virii tweakers adapt something to slide by the defense that the security company are touting ..

Few virii writers are girls ..they don't go in so much for p*ssing contests ..

Nor "writing" their name in the snow ..

They are very curious though ..;)

And they make much better helicopter pilots than guys :)

[Beagle]

There doesn't have to be a financial incentive. Think of the kids who vandalize property or equipment, or who go down the street shooting out the windows of every parked car. Then add a computer mom and dad never look at and the ability to use it...

[2by4]

txbakers, I'm surprised, you must not have been following the news in the last few years:

"the US government now has authorized spying and eavedroppiing with warrants."

They don't need a warrant any more, haven't you heard of the 'patriot [sic] act'? What do they teach kids in school nowadays anyway?

In answer to the original question, I'm sure what the person is wondering has happened at least once or twice, but I seriously doubt it happens very much, and now that big money interests have found uses for taking over networks of computers, there's plenty of motivation.

Originally I think most crackers in fact did do this stuff just because you can, and because:

1. it was a Thrill
2. it was a Rush
3. it gave you status in cracker scene
4. the crackers hated microsoft
5. General frustration with existence
6. Good intentions misfiring, the german kid fighting another virus for example
7. Whatever other reason teenagers/20 something guys can come up with that seems reasonable to them at the time.

Same reasons you hot rod a car, overclock a pc, or whatever other pointless activity people do just because they can, but which also take a lot of time/money/energy to achieve. Think hobby.

Now that there's money to be made, the reasons are more practical:

1. Get victim email address book contents to sell to spammers
2. Take over boxes to create botnets. One particularly entrerprising group of youngsters was just busted, they had the report stated 1.5 million boxes under their control. Botnets are useful to send spam, to deliver DDOS attacks, and many other fun activities.
2a. Take over boxes to lease/rent to botnets. The money isn't bad, and it's easy work.
3. Install backdoors that allow fun things like keystroke loggers to be installed. I suspect our friends in the russian mafia are particularly fond of this one. Not to exclude other enterprising areas though.

Lots of good practical reasons, as you can see, plus lots of less practical but still interesting [to the crackers] ones.

But I'm sure there has been at least one or two av companies that have done this, there's no reason for them not to, unless you believe that all companies out there are by definition as purely ethical as a newborn babe.

[Essex_boy]

Thats why I wear a tin foil hat....

[2by4]

I keep reading about all these WebmasterWorld members that go around wearing tinfoil hats, or believing that other people go around wearing tinfoil hats, what's up with that? Sounds kind of silly to me, but I guess each to their own. Couldn't be a way to avoid having to think about stuff, could it? You know, make a cute term, then file everything under it that you don't want to deal with in more meaningful ways? Just a thought.

[kevinpate]

> ... wearing tinfoil hats, what's up with that?

Thanks for proving the tinfoil is working! If it dinna work, you or the guvvernmint would be able to just read thoughts all on your own.
HURRAH fer tinfoil! :)

[txbakers]

OOPS I meant, "without" warrants.

See, the secret government drug programs are working on me.

[Tapolyai]

Close your eyes, and remember the ancient times. Far, far away, in the recesses of a far country a man was born who later devised a method for self-replicating code. And his name was ... János von Neumann circa the 50's. I don't remember well, because it was even before my ancient time. This was when monstrous horrible devices struggled to add simple digits, while consuming enough energy to power a small town, and took up space of a school.

Way, way before anti-virus companies were born. A long long time ago, when 8-bit computing was new, and the the ][ sign was just barely known, the first dark virus appeared.

It was the early 1980s. Many little annoyances have followed, but none so horrible that could not be lived with.

Then a few years later "Jerusalem" struck, but there were still no anti-virus companies. Sysops (an ancient name for the elders controlling those magical devices) still had no anti-virus products, and continued to struggle manually against foul things as TSRs and floppy boot sector rewriting nightmares.

Then in early 90's there was a glimmer of hope named Norton... The rest is just recent history...
- - -
My point - virii came first. Not the chicken. Relax, and have a smoothie.

[2by4]

Tapolyai, that's a good example, the question was always first: can I do this? Then: Why don't I try? This might be hard for people to understand who have never found themselves thinking in this way about things.

re tinfoil, not worth getting into further, WebmasterWorld has strengths and weaknesses, like anything else. Plus TOS that actually do make sense in terms of maintaining a reasonably focused discussion. Since I respect the TOS, and the mods, most of them anyway, that's enough on that subject.