Sources of many viruses?

[Ernest T. Bass]

Could it possibly be that some of the viruses out there originate from
disgruntled MS employees at home? Just a thought =)

 

[Stratman]

Could it possibly be that some of the viruses out there originate from
disgruntled MS employees at home? Just a thought =)

I am always suspicious about how quickly some Anti-Virus software companies
come up with a cure for virii that nobody else has heard of. It's almost as
if they were expecting it...........

They wouldn't do that.

Would they?

 

[Boyd Williston]

I am always suspicious about how quickly some Anti-Virus software
companies come up with a cure for virii that nobody else has heard of.
It's almost as if they were expecting it...........

They wouldn't do that.

Would they?

Ah, the conspiracy theories.

There is NO evidence that MS employees act as suggested by Ernest. Not
that they couldn't, just that there is no evidence pointing in that
direction.

And there is very good reason to explain why AV companies post fixes so
quickly. It's their business, and they commonly get copies of a new
infection submitted within hours of its first appearance. Since many
viruses are actually quite specific in how they behave, it's not hard to
imagine a team of experienced professionals being able to analyze a new
infection and prepare a fix in just a few hours.

And in many cases, they are sort of expecting the infection: they read the
notices of newly found security holes too. So when a new virus shows up
that attacks the hole, they already know part of the solution.

 

[Gigi]

Ah, the conspiracy theories.

There is NO evidence that MS employees act as suggested by Ernest. Not
that they couldn't, just that there is no evidence pointing in that
direction.

And there is very good reason to explain why AV companies post fixes so
quickly. It's their business, and they commonly get copies of a new
infection submitted within hours of its first appearance. Since many
viruses are actually quite specific in how they behave, it's not hard to
imagine a team of experienced professionals being able to analyze a new
infection and prepare a fix in just a few hours.

And in many cases, they are sort of expecting the infection: they read the
notices of newly found security holes too. So when a new virus shows up
that attacks the hole, they already know part of the solution.

The originators that have been caught, that I'm aware of, have all
been loners. And some of the latest ones are thought to have
originated in Asia.
Gigi

 

[Petter Settli]

Boyd Williston wrote:

And in many cases, they are sort of expecting the infection: they
read the notices of newly found security holes too. So when a new
virus shows up that attacks the hole, they already know part of the
solution.

Geez, how many holes can there be possibly be left?

PS

 

[Ernest T. Bass]

The originators that have been caught, that I'm aware of, have all
been loners. And some of the latest ones are thought to have
originated in Asia.
Gigi

Yes, that is very interesting. Are there any statistics on this? e.g.
viruses that originate from lone nerds =), hostiles outside the 'western
style' countries, prisons, disgruntled employees, U.S. Postal service
employees (hehe), etc?

Just curious..

 

[Robert Moir]

Could it possibly be that some of the viruses out there originate from
disgruntled MS employees at home? Just a thought =)

Its also possible that some viruses originate from people who post to
newsgroups accusing Microsoft employees / Antivirus company employeess / The
Illuminati / Michael Jackson of writing viruses.

In any of those cases, including yours, the next question should be "Is it
likely?".

 

[Ernest T. Bass]

Its also possible that some viruses originate from people who post to
newsgroups accusing Microsoft employees / Antivirus company employeess / The
Illuminati / Michael Jackson of writing viruses.

In any of those cases, including yours, the next question should be "Is it
likely?".

I'm too stupid to write a virus, but you seem like a purty smart feller to
me..

=)

 

[Boyd Williston]

Boyd Williston wrote:



Geez, how many holes can there be possibly be left?

PS

2...many

 

[Nick FitzGerald]

I am always suspicious about how quickly some Anti-Virus software companies
come up with a cure for virii that nobody else has heard of. It's almost as
if they were expecting it...........

That would probably be because you are gullible enough to believe the media
hype, the typical Hollywood portrayal of hackers, viruses and virus writers,
and the occasional highly uninformed "system administrator", "Joe Blow
programmer", etc who gets on the 6 o'clock news saying how clever, devious
and advanced the latest piece of lame code was that he was too stupid to
prevent from getting on his (self-described) "state of the art" network,
etc, etc, etc. All those "sources" suggests virus writers are horrendously
clever and only release devastatingly new, radically different,
fundamentally complex and thus immensely difficult to analyse viruses.

Of course, in reality, at least 99.99% of everything "new" the AV industry
sees is, in fact, very, very much like one or other of the 80,000+ things
it has already seen, analysed to death, largely automated the handling of
and so on. Thus, AV developers get updates out within minutes to hours of
getting samples of pretty much everything new they see (depending on the
product, internal minimum testing standards, how "privileged" your access
is to their DAT/DEF/etc updates and so on).

Of course, "Yet another dull, typical mass mailer shows how slack-arsed and
stupid most system admins and SOHO users are" does not make as compelling a
headline as the copy-editors can fashion from the butt-covering sysadmin
"explaining" how clever and devious the latest virus was and so on and most
of the media certainly is not interested in level-headed, objective
commentary when it can get sensationalistic crap instead.

They wouldn't do that.

Would they?

If you have to ask you are probably too stupid to undertsand the answer.