I’d qualify that slightly: Most virus writers are not hackers, and most hackers are not virus writers, but there is some nonzero overlap. Even if most virus writers are just copying or adapting previous viruses, every new innovation had to be found by somebody. The writer of the first doc virus, for instance, might qualify for hacker status, but the thousands of doc viruses after that don’t (note, by the way, that that first doc virus carried no payload, merely a warning).
In those rare cases where a hacker does write a virus, the motivation is most likely intellectual curiousity. Yes, there are also more productive things which can be done, and a hacker can be expected to do those, as well.
Sorry about the correlation…didn’t mean to equate hackers to virus writers. I was looking for the mentality of a virus hacker and made a feable attempt to do this…
That may be true today, but back in the “older days” virus writing was a true skill. Trying to get a program to avoid being detected through means like polymorphism is actually quite hard to do, and often the means of doing so while keeping program size down small enough to be a feasible virus were bordering on brilliance, in many cases.
That doesn’t apply to generic VBScript virus 9.0, however.
frixxxx
I do not want to be another one to chastise you for the “hacker = virus writer” correlation (for which you appropriately apologized).
However, that article you posted was from 1986. Not many computer viruses back then.
Because they’re evil and have nothing better to do with their time, like jumping off a cliff or something that would benefit society better than their existence :mad:
Suppose that for every few thousand kids who write viruses or break into systems just for the fun of it or to show off, there’s one person or group with some more sinister plans. Someone who could really do some severe damage if the kids weren’t there poking around, pointing out where all the security holes are. You could say that by doing what they do, crackers and virus writers help beef up the “immune systems” of computer systems everywhere by pointing out where the security lapses are.
May not be a moral way to do it, but I’m sure at least some of them justify it that way.
As fun as it is to suggest that virus writers are just trying to be l33t, or compensate for their tiny tadgers, or they have nothing better to do with their time… let me suggest a practical reason.
Worms like Blaster/LovSan and SoBig can act as drones - one of their functions is to spread from one vulnerable system to another, but they also download and run other code. They can create a vast network of FTP servers to store illicit files, IRC proxies and bots to evade bans and take over channels, email proxies to relay spam, and so on. These services can either be used by the virus author and his friends, or they can be sold to others.
An article from the New York Times (picked up by the Houston Chronicle) suggests that SoBig may be intended to create a vast network of spam servers:
The role of you humans is to push evolution to the hilt. To stress as many species as thoroughly as possible. The “delicate” and “elegant” eat dirt. The tough and ingenious (and the lucky) survive and prosper in the filth to be tested another day with still greater horrors conjured by the two legged creature. Thus will the perfect beast be born.
The role of the virus writer, whether he knows it or not, is to similarly affect computer code. We instil the virus-writing capability in thousands of our young agents every year who ceaselessly test and destroy fragile and elegant computer networks and programs. The “bulletproof” will set the patterns for future softwares, virus scanning programs are reactive and useless.
When we began the conquest of the Andromeda Galaxy 13,459 of your years ago we had our manifold posterior elements handed to us by the Thremulites. Our machinery was inferior, our computers simple and our physical bodies weaker than our opponents’. In an enlightened moment, we realized it was not important that WE defeat the accursed enemy, but that the accursed enemy be defeated. And so we discovered the brilliant race that is you. You are very nearly completed…for your purpose. The computers & machinery is coming along nicely as well. In several millennia, the Thremulites will be destroyed and Andromeda will be OURS!
Yes there were. Worms and viruses have existed since the mainframe days.
I remember the NETWORK of TRS80 workstations at my highschool having a worm my prof. couldn’t get rid of. This in 1985.
There was a virus called the cookiemonster that infested college mainframes as far back as the middle seventies. Every so often the prompt “I wanna cookie” would pop up on your terminal, and refuse all input unless the user typed “cookie”.
If you typed “oreo” it left you alone longer.
I had an antivirus program and needed it on my Amiga 1000, c. 1986. Boot vector and cold capture vector viruses were a serious problem, and viruses killed many of my games.
I’m not sure there is a definitive answer for the OP. Hence, this thread should move to IMHO.
Don’t assume that all script kiddies are teenage mutants. The immaturity and ego problem children also include those in their 20s and 30s.
Since peeing how far up the side side of outhouses, let alone tipping them over, are no longer in vogue, they have to find something else to occupy their time and the “look at me I’m important and know it,” attitudes.
As the OP stated, I’m looking for a practical reason for such behavior. There might not be one. Commercial sabotage was one that hadn’t come to mind yet, the psychological reasons seem all too clear.
Most viruses contain greets or homages to girlfriends or female celebs. Distributing this virus will therefore impress the object of the writers desire no end, and they will become theirs until the end of time.
Apart from the ‘spam-network’ theory currently being floated there are no practical reasons. Practical reasons are not the motivation.