Virus Writers Moving From Annoying Adolescent To Entrepreneur?

from the changing-nature dept

As you might expect in the wake of the flurry of destructive viruses and worms we've been seeing, here come the news reports trying to pick apart what sort of person writes a virus. Most of the article goes over the familiar stereotypical story of an awkward teenager calling out for attention, but the article also discusses the increasing role of a profit-motive in writing viruses. Spammers, scammers and hackers (oh my!) are teaming up with virus writers, according to the article, to come up with increasingly sophisticated schemes to get money - many of which are being run by organized crime operations. The article makes it all sound very scary, but doesn't give much in the way of proof for these assertions. I don't doubt that it is happening, but I wish there was a better explanation of how these so-called "experts" know this. Update: Here's a ZDNet piece that explains why it's often difficult to catch virus writers, but suggesting that because SoBig had a profit motive - it may be possible to track the culprit down.

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