Slashdot Mirror
Bad Guys Use Open Source, Too
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."
Their grammar's great, too.
-
...Malware writers are using *gasp* coding to further their goals?!? Horrorz!
Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
Sure but what license are they using? I make sure all my malware is GPL3. None of that BSD licensed malware for me!
Are they do?
You can't handle the truth.
Why should only the criminal side of the malware equation get the benefits of open-source?
Nah, this isn't about compiler or environment, but the employment of a community-centric development model. Even bounties, it looks like.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Sort of anyway? Seems to that the networks of hackers and bad guy developers has always been sharing notes and code, and that this technique has long been used as an "intelligence amplifier" allowing a loose collection of bad guys who couldn't or at least didn't get real jobs to create some powerful malware tools. Which are often then used by someone else with slightly less coding sense and much more ambition to make some money, and to spread the idea of making money this way to others. The whole industry is a lot like multi-level marketing that way.
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.
That's just idiotic and the whole article reads as an advertisement for Seculert
Even bounties, it looks like.
Isn't that rather booties? Arrr!
Ezekiel 23:20
Bad Guys Also Use Closed Source Model! Bad Guys Even Use Software and Hardware! Bad Guys Breath Oxygen and Some Piss in Urinals. Ban all these evil tools of the bad guys!
this open source thingie is used for writing malware!! someone must stop them, all opensource must be deemed illegal, and richard stallman should be prosecuted for aiding criminals. if you don't believe me, go ask microsoft, they'll agree with everything i just said.
my sig pwns your sig
Is there a story in here somewhere?
Criminals are usually stupid, but eventually even they start to use modern methods. Nothing new or surprising.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
GUNs don't kill people, GNUs kill people!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
... has gone to plaid.
Bad guys use the toilet too. They also eat and sleep and such, and we could argue that this does indirectly help them make better malware. So?
1. Release a strict GPL-licensed virus (along with source offer and all)
2. Make it infect your target's executables
3. Sue them for license breach!
4. Profit!
See? I did away with those pesky '???' bits!
The author is right, nobody would have ever thought that the kind of people who lurk in the computer underground would ever use open source tools or methods to develop their malware. We all thought that "those people" were paying Microsoft for copies of Visual Studio and writing all of their code based explicitly on MSDN code samples.
Criminals, CRIMINALS I SAY ! Drive cars, ride on the bus right beside us, eat food, sleep and defecate just like regular people. Call on God or the wizard of Oz to do something. Please. Please. Oh woe. Oh woe we are doomed, so doomed. Oh grievous despair...