In the “old days”, it was said there were a few 16 year old geek hackers who would create silly little worm viruses that would be sent out, just to see what they could do. Sort of “Gee, what happens if I put a cherry bomb in the toilet in the boys restroom?” stupid teenage antics.
Then a few viruses started to get sort of malicious.
But who is creating them now? And is there any point to creating them, other than feed a rather large anti-virus software industry (my paranoia wonders if they might have a hand it in themselves to keep people buying their software)?
It seems to be a lot of work to create a virus that can cause so much damage - and for what purpose? So I guess the crux of this question is that I am trying to figure out the who and why of computer viruses today.
The reasons for their creation is variable. Some are still just the kid dropping a cherry bomb. Some are made to explicitly attack a given company. Some are done for political reasons. Some are done as a means to earn money (steal your bank password, spam a site to generate more ad revenue, etc.).
As I understand it many of the worst and most targeted are Russian in origin. Also some are Chinese. That said all over the world is in there too.
Identity theft is another reason for viruses (trojans, especially). They come into your hard drive under the disguise of another type of program, then open up your ports and allow the hacker to steal all of your passwords and information.
OK, this may be the one conspiracy theory to which I subscribe. I find it hard to imagine that companies who sell virus protection software aren’t somehow responsible for the creation of certain viruses. Proof? No. Never. But something inside me tells me it’s certainly a real possibility.
Viruses can also allow the originator to steal your computer resources for use in sending spam, launching denial of service attacks, and so on, either for themselves or for hire to other scumbags :mad:
I’ve always wondered how they test them though, do they have a bunch of old dummy computers they ruin with various self-created viruses? I mean, I know you can program things without testing, but I think they would want to send out working viruses instead of ones that may or may not and just hope it “sticks.”
Also, the timely as always xkcd, straight form the “Randall get out of my brain files”: http://xkcd.com/