Virus writers have girlfriends - official

[MacBytes]

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Category: News and Press Releases
Link: Virus writers have girlfriends - official (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20050415180709)

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
Approved by Mudbug

[Earendil]

"Virus writing is irresponsible but not difficult," she said.

wtf? perhaps it's because I grew up Apple, but I know the Apple OS's inside and out (outside of unix) because of hundreds of hours of learning and reading. I also have completed Freshmen year in CS, so I'm pretty versed in C++ now. As of right now, I wouldn't have the DARNDEST clue how to create and write a virus. I know some of the conceptual stuff, but not how to implement such a virus.

Perhaps if I did a little search online I could find the "how to hack nasa in 30 minutes" handbook, but I doubt it. Perhaps she was talking about script kiddies, but she doesn't state that, and as it stands, she has really lowered my trust in Symantec. There are some absolutely brilliant virus writers out there, some of which haven't even hit college yet.

~Tyler

[PlaceofDis]

you mean sterotypes dont apply to everyone in that niche? wow :eek: :D

[looklost]

Oh ya, did she acully meet these so-called "girlfriends"? :p

[James Philp]

I thought all real virus writers these days worked for international terrorist organisations, and hacked banks for funding or governments for passports? ;)
Yes, a girlfriend in this situation is the perfect cover!
What a silly article.

[yellow]

What the hell does this have to do with Macs? The Register. Meh.

[winmacguy]

What the hell does this have to do with Macs? The Register. Meh.
Not a lot directly but the Register has some well written articles and I liked this one so I posted it. :)

[gekko513]

"Virus writing is irresponsible but not difficult," she said.

wtf? perhaps it's because I grew up Apple, but I know the Apple OS's inside and out (outside of unix) because of hundreds of hours of learning and reading. I also have completed Freshmen year in CS, so I'm pretty versed in C++ now. As of right now, I wouldn't have the DARNDEST clue how to create and write a virus. I know some of the conceptual stuff, but not how to implement such a virus.

Perhaps if I did a little search online I could find the "how to hack nasa in 30 minutes" handbook, but I doubt it. Perhaps she was talking about script kiddies, but she doesn't state that, and as it stands, she has really lowered my trust in Symantec. There are some absolutely brilliant virus writers out there, some of which haven't even hit college yet.

~Tyler

Really?

You just have to write some code that mails itself to others or copies itself to places without explicit user action to have the most basic virus. That doesn't have to be hard. All the other extras like installing backdoors, exploiting vulnerabilities to spread more effectively, hide from anti-virus or wreak chaos and havoc are more or less optional. There are thousands upon thousands of viruses out there and most of them aren't very advanced and are usually based upon each other.

I agree that there are some absolutely brilliant virus writers out there, but I also agree with the researcher that writing a basic virus isn't that difficult.

[Vonnie]

"Virus writing is irresponsible but not difficult," she said.

wtf? perhaps it's because I grew up Apple, but I know the Apple OS's inside and out (outside of unix) because of hundreds of hours of learning and reading. I also have completed Freshmen year in CS, so I'm pretty versed in C++ now. As of right now, I wouldn't have the DARNDEST clue how to create and write a virus. I know some of the conceptual stuff, but not how to implement such a virus.
~Tyler

Kind of depends on what you call a virus. A program that reads your address book, sends mails to everyone in their, with itself attached isn't hard. Any kid could write something like that, with some scripting language like vbscript (windows) or applescript (macos). Yeah, the e-mail client of the recipient is going to warn the user when he opens your virus. Guess what, most people ignore that warning anyway.

When your definition of a virus includes "attaching itself to another process", then yes, it is a bit more hard. But even that isn't extremely hard, if you use nice things like mach_inject/override on macos. (I have no idea what exists for windows)

[Qunchuy]

You just have to write some code that mails itself to others or copies itself to places without explicit user action to have the most basic virus. That doesn't have to be hard.
That's not a virus. To be a virus it has to "infect" other machines and -- without explicit user action -- cause them to run it too. With the multitude of security holes in (unpatched) Windows systems, you might be right, and it might be easy. On other platforms, however, finding ways to get another machine to run your code is definitely a difficult task.

[gekko513]

That's not a virus. To be a virus it has to "infect" other machines and -- without explicit user action -- cause them to run it too. With the multitude of security holes in (unpatched) Windows systems, you might be right, and it might be easy. On other platforms, however, finding ways to get another machine to run your code is definitely a difficult task.
A lot of viruses today depend on users to run it. They are still called viruses.

[Earendil]

A lot of viruses today depend on users to run it. They are still called viruses.

If it requires tricking the user into running it, I believe the technical term is "Trojan". There are Worms, Trojans, Viruses, and the windows OS, all of which can cause damage to files or things that you don't want them to do, but they have all been classed under "Virus" to the mass media and to the average computer user. For example, You can still say that OS X is free of viruses, because the only real threat ever seen was a Trojan (which was later reported to be a fraud I believe).

At least that's my take on it.
Perhaps in time 'Virus' will become the generic term for malicious code, similar to the way "Hacker" has become synonymous with "someone that uses computer to break the law" which wasn't it's original meaning.
Gotta love language ;-)

~Tyler
~Earendil