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Bad Guys Use Open Source, Too

Posted by timothy on from the malice-aforethought dept.

First time accepted submitter colinneagle writes "Open source has been so successful in giving us software like Linux, Apache, Hadoop, etc., why wouldn't the open source method work with other types of software? Probably no one expected that the criminals behind vast malware trojans would adopt open source methods to make their malware more dangerous, but they have. According to this report from Seculert Research, the makers of Citadel, a variant of the Zeus Trojan are using open source models to hone their code and make the Trojan more dangerous."

3 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. because it works? by cellocgw · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I guess the "takeaway" from this is that trying to produce working code with .Net or PowerShell is well-nigh impossible.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  2. Need open-source antimalware too by Eric+Smith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why should only the criminal side of the malware equation get the benefits of open-source?

  3. Re:Nobody expected? by GauteL · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You are completely missing the point. Of course malware authors aren't averse to pirating software.

    In fact you'd sort of expect them to use pirated software rather than FOSS.

    The point here is that the malware authors to some extent seem to deliberately share their code and findings with other malware authors.