Wednesday, July 12, 2006

what is a virus spreader?

a virus spreader is a person who tries to cause other people's computers to become infected by viruses either directly by executing infected programs on those computers or indirectly by sending infected programs to users of those computers with an appropriate social engineering attack to trick those users into executing the infected programs themselves...

intentionally spreading viruses is perhaps the most malicious of all pro-virus behaviours as it is an explicit attempt to inflict viral infection on others... some try to justify it with excuses like 'scientific curiosity' (ie. wanting to know if it will really spread in the wild) even though history has shown that viral success in the wild has more to do with luck than it does any technical quality of the virus (ie. technically impressive viruses can be complete failures while unsophisticated and often buggy viruses become widespread)...

there are other less benign justifications as well, such as revenge for some perceived wrong-doing, spreading social or political messages that may be contained within the viruses, financial gain, or even plain old ordinary malice...

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