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VIRUSES - Scratching the Surface
by Yuri Tang ©2004

“How many hours are wasted due to viruses and spam e-mails a year?”

The question may be better worded as:

“How many days are wasted due to viruses and spam e-mails a year?”

It is believed that the answer is on average about nine days. This is broken down as six days to deal with spam e-mails and another three days when PC is unworkable due to viruses. The majority of computer users (approximately 70%) have had to deal with viruses over the past year.*

Awareness is a good prevention tool against viruses. It would seem that over 50% of users are unaware that computers get viruses by opening e-mail attachments, and only 17% know that downloading a file can cause the computer to get a virus. Maybe users rely too heavily on anti-virus software to fight viruses. Opening e-mails and attachments from unknown senders will have a high chance that it will contain a virus of some description.

“Technology should not be your first line of defence – that should be common sense.”**

“Why do people write viruses?”

There are a number of different reasons. The common thinking that it is done by some schoolboy teenager with nothing else to do, is still true, but they are not alone. The scope of people writing viruses nowadays is so widespread, that there is no common link between them all.

Money is now increasingly becoming a major factor. Spammers are making money and are beginning to work with virus writers, due to the fact that the spam mail can be spread over a wider area. An example of this is the ‘Sobig F’ virus, which sent out countless spam emails by turning a computer into a host and sending the e-mail to every address it could find. It is not uncommon that this is done without the computer user knowing.

Some argue members of cybergangs feel like they belong to a cause and this in turn boosts there confidence. Other reasons are that people do it for the technical challenge and enjoy seeing what they have written spread around the world. It is claimed that writing viruses is an art and a form of expression, while others do it for the same reason as vandals, to show off.

“I do not think there is any such thing as a good virus”***

On the surface it would seem this statement is true and that there are no advantages to a virus. Though there are some viruses that have been described as ‘helpful’. One of these viruses was called the ‘cheese’ virus.

In 2001 a virus called the ‘Lion’ infected Linux servers and installed backdoors that could be exploited, and also stole passwords. The ‘cheese’ virus was written to find computers affected by the ‘Lion’ and apply a software patch to close the hole. It then copied itself and used the fixed computer to look for other networks that had been affected.

There was also the ‘Noped’ virus, whose aim was to catch paedophiles. ‘Noped’ scans the hard drive searching for JPEG files and checks for suspect file names and, if found, sends an e-mail to law enforcement dealing with child pornography.

Even though these viruses were written with good intentions, they have not been welcomed by everyone. The argument against the ‘cheese’ virus is that any software that makes unauthorised changes to a computer can be dangerous. It has been stated that the ‘Noped’ virus was unlikely to help and was not very wide spread. It was also added that organisations would be unlikely to react to any e-mails containing friendly viruses as they would deem them to be a waste of time that could have been spent on other investigations. Another reason was, as it attempts to e-mail a copy of itself to every name in the Microsoft Outlook it causes an increase in e-mail traffic.

“Will viruses ever stop?”

It is believed that viruses will never be rid of. It was mentioned that software writers are at a catch 22. The reason for this is that if the software vendor found a security breech in their software, that had been released, they could fix the problem in the form of a download. The problem was, by doing this they were advertising the weakness to virus writers, who could exploit this before people realised there was an update to download.

There will always be fixes and preventions from viruses, but on the other hand there will always be new ways to write and spread them. In the end, people’s awareness can reduce the risk of viruses, along with anti-virus software. Can there be such a good thing as a good virus? Possibly, but if computers are being altered without the consent or knowledge of the user, where do you draw the line?

*Based on a study by Yahoo mail
**Eric Chien, head of Symantec’s anti-virus research in Holland
***Graham Cluley of anti-virus company Sophos