There’s a Virus for That
April 20th, 2010 - 10:23 am
According to Symantec, over half of all the viruses and malware ever discovered, were discovered last year. The first computer virus was written and released on ARPANET in 1971. So from then until 2008 — 37 years — saw less malicious activity than in a single year, 2009.
And I’d wager that with massive botnets now common, malware isn’t just increasing astronomically in the number of attacks, but in the effectiveness of those attacks.
Which leaves the question: Who controls the botnets, and how much of their activity is directly (or indirectly) controlled by governments?
I take numbers from anti-virus companies with a very large grain of salt. There are a lot of different ways you can count variations (polymorphic or otherwise) of different viruses out there. That being said, the constantly increasing profit motive for taking over computers for “botnets” is keeping us well-supplied with new and exciting pieces of malware.
Agreed. That quote sounds a lot like the “we could lose 1-2 million species the next hundred years” claim, which is hard to address since we aren’t really sure how many species do exist in the world. Not to mention virtually all of those are things like bacteria, or at best teeny insects.
My reading informs me that Symantec is citing code encountered by that company, and that the 51% relates to the number of attempts, not a larger number of different varieties of code. Considering it makes one of the most popular anti-virus programs, it’s not surprising it sees many instances.
…Unless that’s what Steven meant, and I mis-understood his phrasing.
Who runs the botnets? The crooks, directly. I don’t think the Chinese are mixed in too much, as they tend to be patriotic, hacking for the greater glory of China. Russia I would find more plausible, considering how criminal groups have become deeply embedded in their society.
One wild card might be the more …excitable… under-30 true believers in Europe. Not just the dedicated Marxists, but Greenpeace, radical green, or PETA types. They just might consider theft justifiable to save the planet “by. any. means. necessary.”
Like that idiot from India making an announcement to “anti-greens” that “we know where you live,” and so on. He later backtracked to claim he was personally quite non-violent, but you get the idea.
Well, the AGW alarmists have been warning us that climate change will result in greater numbers of viruses…
Just sayin’