Who creates viruses and why?

af_thefragile · 02-11-2012 09:49PM #1

Last month my laptop got infected with some virus which required me to erase everything on it and do a clean install of windows again. I often wonder who creates virus programmes and why? What do they aim to achieve from screwing up other people's computers? Who has the time to sit and write up a program which has no other aim apart from ruining someone's computer and what sort of a low life does one have to be to spend their time figure out ways to destroy and disrupt other people's lives??...

Celly Smunt · 02-11-2012 09:51PM

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

others should use anti-virus.

pippip · 02-11-2012 09:51PM

af_thefragile wrote: »

Last month my laptop got infected with some virus which required me to erase everything on it and do a clean install of windows again. I often wonder who creates virus programmes and why? What do they aim to achieve from screwing up other people's computers? Who has the time to sit and write up a program which has no other aim apart from ruining someone's computer and what sort of a low life does one have to be to spend their time figure out ways to destroy and disrupt other people's lives??...

Your just collatoral damage in their war with the big companies....microsoft mostly

Grayson · 02-11-2012 09:51PM

Some do it for financial reasons. others do it because they want to see if they can. Yet others do it because they want to disrupt iranian uranium enrichment. There's loads of different viruses and the motives of their makers vary widely.

seven_eleven · 02-11-2012 09:51PM

Shouldnt have downloaded all those dodgey porn files, op.

Celly Smunt · 02-11-2012 09:52PM

seven_eleven wrote: »

Shouldnt have downloaded all those dodgey porn files, op.

people still download porn?

mattjack · 02-11-2012 09:52PM

seven_eleven wrote: »

Shouldnt have downloaded all those dodgey porn files, op.

There's dodgy porn films now ?

Micky Dolenz · 02-11-2012 09:53PM

Why do people do anything? Because they can.

Celly Smunt · 02-11-2012 09:55PM

this is a virus nobody click it!

Where To · 02-11-2012 09:55PM

mattjack wrote: »

There's dodgy porn films now ?

You can imagine how shocked I was when I searched for articles on the lesser dogfaced prawn with Safesearch off.:eek:

Sinfonia · 02-11-2012 09:56PM

Antisocial scum, they are :P

Skinhead Kane · 02-11-2012 09:56PM

America, blame them for everything I say!

Zebra3 · 02-11-2012 09:56PM

Who creates viruses and why?

Cynics would suggest people who create anti-virus programs create viruses to make money, but I can't imagine anybody in the world doing anything underhand like that.

Where To · 02-11-2012 09:58PM

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Why do people do anything? Because they can.

Didn't figure you as a Diana Ross fan Micky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7-BXR3T_s

af_thefragile · 02-11-2012 10:04PM

seven_eleven wrote: »

Shouldnt have downloaded all those dodgey porn files, op.

Wasn't porn and I did have anti-virus on. I somehow got it off pandyland.net which is a fairly harmless comic strip site...

admiralofthefleet · 02-11-2012 10:04PM

in before run to da hills

The Snipe · 02-11-2012 10:09PM

Often times virus's are created by security companies to test security for a system.

Virus's you get, Money, Because they can, to see if they can, because they find it fun.

Duggy747 · 02-11-2012 10:12PM

Zebra3 wrote: »

Cynics would suggest people who create anti-virus programs create viruses to make money, but I can't imagine anybody in the world doing anything underhand like that.

Considering the amount of machines infected that come into me with Norton / McAfee / Avast / AVG / Security Essentials / Bullguard / etc already installed on them but are crippled by a virus, they do a shìt job at stopping the supposed ones they help create / fund.

Anyways, tons of reasons why viruses are created. Anything from using your machine as a bot for spamming onto others, scams, etc, right down to somebody just testing their coding ability.

I found the Garda virus funny with it's awful Irish translation and a demand of a £100 :pac:

InReality · 02-11-2012 10:14PM

money !

johnayo · 02-11-2012 10:32PM

af_thefragile wrote: »

Wasn't porn and I did have anti-virus on. I somehow got it off pandyland.net which is a fairly harmless comic strip site...

Are you sure you didn't type in Pantyland by mistake......... Only saying like:(

BBDBB · 02-11-2012 10:33PM

absolute c*nts do

because they are socially inadequate

Run_to_da_hills · 02-11-2012 10:34PM

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

in before run to da hills

:eek:

flyswatter · 02-11-2012 10:37PM

To become so good at making at them that computer security companies offer them a great job preventing them.

BrokenArrows · 02-11-2012 10:38PM

Ive never publically released one but its fun to write some prank ones to get revenge on people you know such as redirecting common websites to hardcore porn.

However the most common reason is to turn a personal computer into a mail forwarding bot.

If the "Hacker" was to use this personal computer to send spam emails then it could be traced back to him but if he has 1000's of random computers infected sending the emails for him then it cannot be traced back.

You also get the script kiddies who just do it for ****s and giggles.

Grayson · 02-11-2012 10:39PM

BBDBB wrote: »

absolute c*nts do

because they are socially inadequate

Not all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWLg6tTeQRg

BrokenArrows · 02-11-2012 10:43PM

Duggy747 wrote: »

Considering the amount of machines infected that come into me with Norton / McAfee / Avast / AVG / Security Essentials / Bullguard ....

Antiviruses can only reliably detect viruses which they know about.
And for them to know about them they must already exist and be infecting computers.

So the computers you see are probably some the "early adopters" of the virus

CreepingDeath · 02-11-2012 10:50PM

af_thefragile wrote: »

I often wonder who creates virus programmes and why? What do they aim to achieve from screwing up other people's computers?

It used to be intelligent and bored computer programmers who wanted to test their skills in the early 1980s/90s.

But these days organised criminals have worked out how to make money on it, creating malware and viruses to allow your computer to be controlled remotely as part of a "botnet", or to attempt to capture your passwords eg. banking passwords.

There's an underground black market in "zero day exploits", where criminals and dodgy state agencies bid for the latest hacks that they can exploit.
Be that Windows, Adobe, Java, Linux network protocols etc.

So the cyber-warfare is in full swing behind the scenes, with the Chinese and Americans trying to hack everyone and everything.

BrokenArrows · 02-11-2012 10:56PM

Its been a long time since ive gotten a virus.

Last time must have been about 10 years ago and that wasnt my fault.

Did a fresh install of XP and connected it to the college network without any antivirus of firewall or running windows update. Within minutes the thing was going mental.
Popups all over the shop, HD and CD started spinning like mad.

I just left it to see what it would do as i knew id have to wipe it again anyway. Eventually it overheated and turned off. lol.

My first exposure to a virus/trojan was subseven. Good times!

Lawrence1895 · 02-11-2012 11:02PM

It's all an alien conspiracy

Or was it the Germans? :pac:

The Radiator · 02-11-2012 11:03PM

af_thefragile wrote: »

Last month my laptop got infected with some virus which required me to erase everything on it and do a clean install of windows again. I often wonder who creates virus programmes and why? What do they aim to achieve from screwing up other people's computers? Who has the time to sit and write up a program which has no other aim apart from ruining someone's computer and what sort of a low life does one have to be to spend their time figure out ways to destroy and disrupt other people's lives??...

The anti-virus guys create virus's's's to keep themselves in the job, it's quite clever really

af_thefragile · 02-11-2012 11:04PM

CreepingDeath wrote: »

So the cyber-warfare is in full swing behind the scenes, with the Chinese and Americans trying to hack everyone and everything.

So you're telling me the Chinese and Americans can see me looking at naughty pictures?

Who creates viruses and why?

Comments