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Virus Creators Sharing More Code
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.)
Any little kiddie who is going to copy a virus and change some code around isnt going to get very far, because the virus scanner is still going to pick it up. It would involve magor changes to change the virus enough for the scanner not to pick it up as the orignal virus. Just look at the last few varients of MyDoom, they hardly made a dent. As long as end users have updated scanners it should not pose as much of a problem.
The nature of most viruses and worms means that they are shared quite ubiquitously. If you have received any of these viruses, then you have the code that makes them work. It's not hard to reverse engineer most code, and it's even easier if the language is something like VB script.
I remember getting the Anna Kornukova virus 4 years ago and just inspecting the script to see exactly how it worked. It would not be tough for a script kiddie to take that and modify it enough to get past virus filters. I'm sure there is virus code sharing, and I'm sure it's increasing, but if you really want to get your hands on the code, the author doesn't even need to intend to share it, he already has!
I've seen a few viruses that do this. One was written from the MyDoom worm, and patched the hole after using it to get in.
While the person who wrote it had good intensions, the network traffic turned out to be devastating for some businesses, and caused more trouble than leaving it alone would have.
Not to mention, it is still illegal. Just like going into a sub7 zombie to remove the trojan that is ddosing you is illegal.
they hardly made a dent. As long as end users have updated scanners it should not pose as much of a problem Obviously you probably are not in the system administration field, ISP field, or anything similar. Right now I work in the ISP field, and you have no idea of the nuisances cause by the same repetitive viruses going on right now. Try explaining to Joe Blow common users why they're receiving messages from management, staff, security@someisp.com telling them their account will be terminated if they don't open foo file. Most don't know what a spoof is, and most don't understand why their dial up connections are now giving them errors.
Along with antivirus sofware which - some go through autoupdates, try explaining to users why they need to run their antivirus software after an update. See most people outside of the geek world would believe that an autoupdate from Symantec, or McAfee or others is automagically going to take care of itself, and it's not. Sure people here may know, but not everyone is Top Geek.
Whenever I talk to friends who don't know much about computing I try to liken it to human diseases and medicine, and those vaccination shots Americans have to take as kids going to school: "If you had diabetes you need insulin, if you go to the pharmacy and get that insulin but bring it home and put it on the table, your doing nothing. Think of an autoupdate from an antivirus company as doing just that. You got the medicine now, why leave it on the table. You have to use it." Most of the times they understand afterwards and ask silly things like well why doesn't the program do it itslef. Some antivirus software does after some configuration some doesn't.
For anyone to think that; someone outside of the computing - is going to have an understanding of this, you're wrong. If this were the case, there would be no more viruses. People are too trusting and naive sometimes, and no antivirus software is not going to detect anything. Has anyone not seen viruses that disable firewalls, antivirus software altogether, because I know I have dealth with people becoming infected with such. You can't base your experience with that of Joe Blow, it's apples and oranges.
MoFscker
there's probably more script kiddies out there who could create a 'new' virus from the source code than there are antivirus analyzers who have trouble unpacking & disassembling a new virus.
About not updating antivirus, well when people get a Norton Antivirus (with 60-day subscription) with their new pc, they're bound to assume it will still do its job after those 60 days.
The good thing is that more and more ISPs are using scanners like ClamAV to scan mails before they reach the customer.
Users are generally like people who leave their car unlocked and then complain that their radio is missing when they get back.
Yes, they're stupid, but in the end the thief is the guilty one.
Virus writers are a great justification for the total elimination of privacy on the Internet. Imagine if you could use ISP logs to trace a virus right back to the first transmission, and then to the source. You could find the prick, drag him to the city limits, and dangle his corpse from a tree as a warning.
Sadly, while I wouldn't mind executing the jerks who assault our information infrastructure, I do value my semi-privacy.