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[Tellemurius]

Monetary gain, amusement, hatred of people, and, I would assume that at least ONE virus was somehow made by accident.

You can be your own virus if you just start angrily pressing random things and spamming a control panel. I remember when I was doing a bit of research on the subject, the person had names for all the different things, but for this he put as the title "Rage of the Almighty Idiot".


I imagine most are created for monetary gain. They're the only ones I see anyway, although I did get one that converted all file types to notepad.

ah yes the PEBKAC virus, still damn common these days

[PkGamer]

Simple to make a virus now a days.Get txtpad and write stuff and then just save as .bat.Then make add a icon.And it looks like the real thing cause windows hides extensions like .bat etc.

[Frumple]

... only if for some ungodly reason you've left extensions hidden when you initially set up the computer. Since it's an option you can and should turn off within the first time or two you turn the computer on.

And if you did leave them hidden, you (arguably) deserve what you get.should feel foolish and fix it.

[PkGamer]

Ah yes but most people are amateur's when in comes to computers.Especially older people, and hackers know they have pensions so they would be one of the easy targets.Very easy targets.

[Leafsnail]

A couple of other motivations for malware that could become more common in future:
- Cyber warfare - Stuxnet spread indiscriminately, but its actual payload specifically targeted Iranian nuclear facilities.
- Law enforcement - The Silk Road and another Tor based website were both believed to have been hit with malware attacks by US authorities.  That meant they could identify the computers without having to decrypt their communications.

[miauw62]

Virusses are really easy to make, just make a program in C and compile it.

That's what you're saying, Pk. There exists such a thing as an AV. And LoveLetter-scale .vb virusses are a thing of the past. Even counting human stupidity, you're not going to make a good virus in 5 minutes in a bat file.

[PkGamer]

I know but if you want to prank a friend you could use a simple bat virus as chances are it wouldn't cause massive damage (if any at all) but the person would still get annoyed.

[Leafsnail]

Those are more like pranks than genuine viruses really.

[Skyrunner]

I would like to make a virus that spreads itself, and also changes all files it can access into notepad.exe

* Skyrunner is now on multiple nations' watch lists

[Itnetlolor]

What would make a good virus would be a self-replicating evolving one that starts off as innocuous and low-class, but is actually more a ghestalt virus. It would be slowly introduced and looked upon as a minor threat, until all it's parts are eventually collected, and through it's code it checks itself to make sure the whole team is on the same machine (or in more elaborate cases, server/network, on separate machines; all files disguised as readme.txt files (have fun finding them all)), and activates, making itself a major problem quickly. Upon activation, it writes a startup full-clean format script on all drives, reserving C: for last, and it does it in complete silence, only to issue a loud buzzing once it starts formatting out the System drive while overclocking all the cards and HDDs installed beyond capacity (not just wiping out the HDDs, but also melting all the parts of the servers and computers, or at least, shorting out the circuit, and frying some of the machines physically).

If you want to destroy someone's machine and livelihood, be thorough about it, but stealthy. And with NSA watchdogs out and about collecting said information, and gathering said files...

[miauw62]

What would make a good virus would be a self-replicating evolving one that starts off as innocuous and low-class, but is actually more a ghestalt virus. It would be slowly introduced and looked upon as a minor threat, until all it's parts are eventually collected, and through it's code it checks itself to make sure the whole team is on the same machine, and activates, making itself a major problem quickly. Upon activation, it writes a startup full-clean format script on all drives, reserving C: for last, and it does it in complete silence, only to issue a loud buzzing once it starts formatting out the System drive while overclocking all the cards installed beyond capacity.

If you want to destroy someone's machine and livelihood, be thorough about it, but stealthy. And with NSA watchdogs out and about collecting said information, and gathering said files...

Conficker, while ultimately rather harmless, does "evolve", as it updates itself, until it reaches the payload-dropper.

Another incredibly interesting field is methaphorical virusses, which are virusses that don't have the same shape, but every time they infect (or so), they don't drop themselves, but a procedurally generated functional equivalent of themselves.

[IronTomato]

Twice, my computer has been hijacked by a stupid fucking "Toolbar" called Conduit, and both are from me accidentally downloading fake versions of programs that I have used before. I've also heard numerous stories about this happening to other people. My anti viruses don't ever completely get rid of it, so both times I had to play hide and seek in my PC files to pick out all the little bits of it.

It doesn't seem to do much besides keep my homepage from being anything but the Conduit search engine, which makes my rather powerful PC lag, though it simply brings you to Bing when you search with it. The first time, though, I had to System Restore because it was changing permissions and then requesting restarts, which I was not going to do.

Anyone know who made this, and why?

[Another]

What would make a good virus would be a self-replicating evolving one that starts off as innocuous and low-class, but is actually more a ghestalt virus. It would be slowly introduced and looked upon as a minor threat, until all it's parts are eventually collected, and through it's code it checks itself to make sure the whole team is on the same machine, and activates, making itself a major problem quickly. Upon activation, it writes a startup full-clean format script on all drives, reserving C: for last, and it does it in complete silence, only to issue a loud buzzing once it starts formatting out the System drive while overclocking all the cards installed beyond capacity.

If you want to destroy someone's machine and livelihood, be thorough about it, but stealthy. And with NSA watchdogs out and about collecting said information, and gathering said files...

Conficker, while ultimately rather harmless, does "evolve", as it updates itself, until it reaches the payload-dropper.

Another incredibly interesting field is methaphorical virusses, which are virusses that don't have the same shape, but every time they infect (or so), they don't drop themselves, but a procedurally generated functional equivalent of themselves.

A metaphorical virus is "Generation 1: ...bla bla bla... copy into your signature... bla bla bla". I think the word you were looking for is "metamorphic".

[DarkArtemisFowl]

Twice, my computer has been hijacked by a stupid fucking "Toolbar" called Conduit, and both are from me accidentally downloading fake versions of programs that I have used before. I've also heard numerous stories about this happening to other people. My anti viruses don't ever completely get rid of it, so both times I had to play hide and seek in my PC files to pick out all the little bits of it.

It doesn't seem to do much besides keep my homepage from being anything but the Conduit search engine, which makes my rather powerful PC lag, though it simply brings you to Bing when you search with it. The first time, though, I had to System Restore because it was changing permissions and then requesting restarts, which I was not going to do.

Anyone know who made this, and why?

Conduit was made to replace default search engines with a search engine that loads advertisements, especially the poor-quality obvious spam advertisements, like the "one weird trick/pill/etc." advertisements. It provides revenue for the makers since they get payment for the advertising. The problem with it is that it roots itself in your registry to keep coming back when you don't want it.

Use something like adwCleaner to get rid of it fully. Also, ALWAYS check for Custom Installation on programs. You never know when they decide to drop a Conduit on your system when installing another program.

[PkGamer]

Similar stuff happened to me once or twice when I didn't pick custom installation.Really annoying, but I learned to use custom installation always since sometimes when you install 'free' stuff you can even get like 5 'free' additional programs that spam your computer....