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by Spixxy on July 1st, 2004

Spixxy

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Why do people create computer viruses?

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  • by Christopher Woods on July 4th, 2004

    Christopher Woods

    Some do it for kicks, to prove themselves on the scene against other virus writers, some do it for malicious ends (such as using infected machines as part of a larger botnet, to perhaps extort money out of companies such as bookmaking companies, by blackmailing them for money on the brink of large betting events such as the British Grand National or threatening to bombard their webserver with so many requests it'd get bogged down and either fall over or perform very poorly for normal users (as did actually happen this year).

    Others do it just to see if they can, some release variants of an already released virus using a virus toolkit, putting in their own personal messages or easter eggs for other tech-savvy people to see...

    Some people do it just to see if they can, like there's a challenge that's there and they have to see if there's any way they can do it. Some do it to prove a security vulnerability - but the people who tend to do this, and not try to inflict any damage or abuse the vulnerability are generally the white hat hackers, who merely code proof-of-concepts for a vulnerability, inform the vendor of the software then release their code on the Internet for all to see. That's when the malicious users get their hands on the code behind the vulnerability compromise, and subvert it for their own ends.

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    • Great answer ;-) I like how you brought up the white/black hat part.

      Oddjob

      by Oddjob on September 20th, 2007

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