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Virus Creators Sharing More Code

Posted by timothy on from the therefore-a-witch dept.

arpy writes "The Washington Times is carrying a report on a 5% increase in publicly available virus code in 2003 (based on a Symantec report). There are now about seven versions of MyDoom, and at least 14 each of Netsky and Beagle. Explains why my email account is overloaded with these little bastards. PC World is reporting changes in the countries that virus are originating from: Australia shot from 14th place to 5th over the last six months of 2003! The source of these stories seems to be the March 2004 Symantec Internet Security Threat Report." (This last requires registration to download.)

9 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Now that there is more code available... by djeaux · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...when will someone write a worm that infects vulnerable Windows (or Linux, for that matter) boxen & surreptitiously applies all the latest security patches, cleans out the mal-ware & defrags the hard drive?

    The folks whose machines are that vulnerable probably need a little "housekeeping" help...

    --
    "Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
    1. Re:Now that there is more code available... by Necrobruiser · · Score: 5, Funny

      applies all the latest security patches, cleans out the mal-ware & defrags the hard drive?

      What? And put all of us MCSEs out of work?

      Damn. I knew my job was gonna get outsourced....

      --
      "I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress
    2. Re:Now that there is more code available... by O2n · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually the danger is not the 5% more virus code available, it's more about the 35% more windows code on the loose.

    3. Re:Now that there is more code available... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Damn. I knew my job was gonna get outsourced....

      Suddenly all of those "go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script" t-shirts start to make a lot more sense...

  2. Ballmer & Gates are right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Open Source software really is viral!

  3. uh oh ... by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Virus Creators Sharing More Code"

    Does this mean Norton and McAfee are going to merge companies ?

  4. Ladies and Gentleman... WE GOT THEM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's so obvious.. all we have to do is trick these virus writers into putting some SCO code into one of these viruses. They can put it between /** **/.. it doesn't matter. If they do that, SCO will pursue them to the ends of the earth!

  5. In other news... by galen · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...legitimate programmers continue to reinvent the wheel.

  6. An introduction to viruses by chrysalis · · Score: 5, Funny

    A lot /. readers are not familiar with Windows and may ask what "virus" means in computer science. So in order to better understand this article, here's a short presentation.

    Virus are popular peer-to-peer sharing systems designed and optimized for Windows platforms.
    Great features of these systems over other P2P systems :
    - It's free software, although the license is often missing.
    - They are very well maintained. New versions are released almost every day.
    - They are easy to use : no need for a GUI, no need for a CLI, everything is fully automated.
    - Updates are also automatic.
    - No need to tweak your firewall, popular viruses can work on port 25 using a SMTP-like protocol.

    In order to join this community, you just have to run an installer called "outlook.exe". To improve your experience, the "internet explorer" add-on is also recommended.

    And how handy, the installer and its add-on are part of the vanilla "Windows" installation CD set. No need to download anything and no registration is required. Very convenient.

    Once the installer ("outlook.exe") has been started, an Evolution-like interface pops up. This is bloat, it can be safely ignored. Directly go to the "add contact" panel and fill in email addresses of friends you want to share executable with. Wait a few minutes (check the internet link is ok) et voila, viruses are automatically downloaded, installed and configured.

    You know understand why this p2p system is so popular in the Windows world : easy to install, easy to use, and the operating system keeps a lot of unfixed security holes in order to avoid breaking backward-compatibility with older viruses.

    --
    {{.sig}}