Does anyone else out there think there’s at least a slim chance that computer viruses are written and distributed by people who work in the virus-detection business?
They’re basically harmless, but annoying. The virus-detection companies can’t go around wrecking your computer or that would hurt them. BUT, they can keep the fear alive that it could happen.
Why don’t any of these viruses actually do real damage? They make a bunch of requests to some web site and just spread mail box to mail box. Big deal.
So these people take the time to write the viruses, but they get no credit for them. They don’t really do any harm. Who are all these people who are mischevious but not malevolent?
It’s like people going around the neighborhood short-sheeting beds. You’re not getting anything out of it. UNLESS, you sell anti-short-sheeting security. Right?
jokes aside, anyone else think this is a realistic possibility? What if there was a world without virus. Where would Symantec be? Where would Norton be?
Possible, but very, very unlikely I think. There seem to be plenty of spotty adolecents out there willing to do the job for them. And it would only take one disgruntled programmer to blow the wistle on them.
Most viruses don’t do any real damage, but some do. I once spent a day and a half clearing my PC of a virus that made my PC un-useable.
Multiply that by 500,000 and you get some serious damage to the networks.
Bored kids. Between the easy vulnerability of Windows (a default Windows installation leaves so many ports and services open, you may as well stick a neon sign on your PC reading “Hack me!”) and the proliferation of do-it-yourself Windows virus scripts, anyone can be a “script kiddie” inside of a few hours.
I would say it’s not even neccesary for big virus companies to write viruses anymore. They can merely find the ones out there and pump as much FUD about them as they can.
There are already so many known virus writers that I would say even if the big companies were writing viruses, they would be facing some pretty stiff competition.
I’d like to see a cite, please. I’ve heard that often but it reeks of UL. Seriously, computer viruses aren’t that complicated and I can’t imagine that regular programming pros wouldn’t be able to reverse-engineer them.
I would also like to second the point that viruses do cause significant economic damage. Big worms and viruses can easily cost companies hundreds of millions of dollars in total to clean up, etc. Viruses are nothing to sneeze at.
The first big Internet worm to hit was the Morris worm. It attacked Unix boxes. At my college, it meant that the computers were down all day, the support staff worked day and night to fix things, etc. Easily tens of thousands of dollars in lost work. And that was just one college for one worm before PCs were everywhere.
What really ticked everybody off was that Morris’s lawyers claimed it caused no harm and the idiots believed him!
As to the OP: Nearly all the major viruses released in the past year are the work of spammers. The most recent group included. The alledged DoS attacks on SCO and MS are just smokescreens. The virus analysts note this but the press still fails to mention the spamming part. The spammers are looking to set up zombie machines to send out spam down the road. The different versions that come out every few months are iterations trying to improve their code.
Now, if you want conspiracy stuff to talk about. The biggest spam operations now involve organized crime operating via Russia, but with India catching up. Both have very weak systems for controlling cybercrime. Which is why it is such a “nifty” idea to send all our personal payroll, credit and medical info to places like India to be processed. Not to mention that the code that is being written overseas by outsourced programmers should be assumed to be infested with all sorts of nasty things.
Corporate corruption is mostly invisible, but it still goes on. For example, when companies are bidding for contracts backhanders are fairly common. This isn’t speculation, I know someone who has been involved in this when selling IT equipment. So its not quite so ridiculous to propose that anti-virus companies write viruses, even if i don’t believe it myself.
It’s ridiculous because virus companies don’t make money on the number of viruses their software protects, they make money on the number of software service packages they sell. As long as SOMEONE out there is writing new viruses and the media reports on it, there is little reason for the anti-virus people to go through the trouble of adding their own.
I have to admit it’s crossed my mind that maybe there’s a secret floor in the McAfee building devoted to creating new viruses. But, as others have noted, they really wouldn’t have to. There’s a world of shmucks out there willing to take on the effort of virus creation, for free. It would be waste of resources, and a tremendous risk, for negligable results.
A couple good points there, but its not “ridiculous” to suggest it just because its very unlikely. For example, a good virus scare will increase the share price of the Anti-virus companies. The senior executives tend to have good share options, so it puts more money directly into their own pockets. If its been a quiet couple months for viruses, it could be in their interest to engineer something, even if they are already doing good business.
But this is all pointless speculation really, there isn’t a shred of evidence out there to suggest it. The only point I was making is that it isn’t the wildest conspiracy theory I’ve heard. Most of those involve Aliens, Elvis or JFK (or a combination of all three).
Hundreds of new viruses are discovered each month. Do you really think an antivirus company has the time and staff to create that many? And with so many discovered each month, why would they have to?
On three consecutive days I received a certain virus in my email(my virus protection caught it each time)…on the fourth day I got an email from a company offering to sell me a program to remove that exact virus from my computer saying the virus was going around and they had the best way of getting rid of it blah blah blah
Instead of buying their protection I sent them an email saying what a coincidence I got their ad for protection after the previous three emails and told them if I ever had that virus sent to me again I would forward the emails to the proper authorities
I went to their site and they were selling other things besides the program to remove that virus
I don’t have the site anymore but I got those emails a year ago last Christmas if anyone else had this happen to them(I remember because in my email to the owner of the site I called it a Christmas Miracle getting a link to their site so soon after being sent the virus)
I use Pegasus for my email…so I was never at any risk from their virus and it never installed…I ran AVG on the file and this is how I knew what someone was sending me was a virus in the first place
I had never gotten that particular virus before then and after I sent the email to the owner of that site…I never received that particular virus again