worm and virus creators

[mandimoo]

why do these people do this? is it just because they can? or are they campaigning against corporations or summat, aiming the virus / worm and corporations and its just unfortunate that the little people get affected.

[VHG]

There are thousands of computer "geeks" out there, and many of them love the challenge of hacking into someones computer, or wrecking havoc with a virus or worm.

Some are driven by money (many of the malware and spyware type of programs encourage people to pay for software they dont want, or somehow manage to capture credit card details to enable them to buy stuff with your money).

But many just do it for the "kicks", they want to see if they can hack into the Pentagon, or a Government department.

Some people hack into web sites and replace the text or pictures, just for the hell of it, I dont think they make any money out of it.

I suppose it is the same sort of people who smash up the local bus shelter, or burn down the local sport hall, or push over headstones in graveyards, morons who only seek to destroy rather than create.

The difference is that these people know the inside of computers and can exploit any weaknees that people leave in their PC.

I know one thing, I am getting seriously fed up with having to spend so much time sorting out the security on my home PCs.

We were hit by a Spyware product recently (even though I have anti virus, firewall, and spyware software installed). It was so bad I had to re-install Windows, which when you start from scratch can take all day (once you put on all the extra applicationd and so on).

It is almost making PCs unusable.

[LeMarchand]

Strangely enough, now that Macs are more popular there are now Mac viruses.

If Linux ever gets more popular, likely the same will happen.