US Leads the World In Malware Creation

PetManimal writes "Symantec says that China, Russia, and the other developing countries usually blamed for the increasing amount of malware are not the biggest culprits. The security software company released a report (PDF) claiming that the US leads the world in a number of malware categories, ranging from the 'amount of malicious activity originating from their networks' to 'underground economy servers.' Preston Gralla says the US lead should come as no surprise, considering the capitalist way of life and the high level of technical knowledge. He also suggests that the some of the 'criminals' may actually be Internet entrepreneurs who crossed over to the dark side: 'It's an inevitable result of a thriving free market and tech expertise. An underground economy often mirrors the legal, above-ground one. Scratch a criminal, and sometimes you find a misguided entrepreneur, looking to get rich a little too quick.'"

misguided?

[jaymzru]

Scratch a criminal, and sometimes you find a misguided entrepreneur, looking to get rich a little too quick.
Is malware even illegal? How is malware different from say, an automatic update or some other less than desirable software? Just because something is annoying doesn't necessarily mean it's illegal and that the author is a criminal.

Engineers vs Programms

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed , not all 'malware' is out to get you, there is a fine line though between
adware and 'malware' at times.

a good software engineer, that is a 'real engineer' would refuse to create such a product, as they are sworn to protect the public interest at all costs.

A programmer mind you, unless they are ethical, goes where the money is.

Lets call the industry what it is, and the workers what they are. Engineers != programmers.

Engineers can be held accountable, in many ways. Programmers on the other hand, can always hide behind the shield of the corporation.

Critical Problem?

[it074771]

Where does it become a critical problem. Well, if you get a system that is infected, you may start having problems with not only your system, but with your enterprise network. In many cases, as you might expect. The end result is that the software tries to spread itself to other and begins to use all of the bandwidth you have on your enterprise for that purpose. If you have unprotected 'everyone' shares, the software can even propagate itself to others on your network, much like a virus or Trojan and then they start transmitting too. In the worse case scenario, you may receive communication from your ISP indicating that an address within your enterprise has a problem and unless you solve it, they will discontinue services. AT&T, Qwest, the RBOC (Regional Bell Operating Companies) and others follow this practice now.

WTF?

[Lord Kano]

"Scratch a criminal, and sometimes you find a misguided entrepreneur, looking to get rich a little too quick.'"

You could say the same thing about crack dealers or contract killers, am I supposed to be sympathetic to them too?

I'm not bothered by the legal aspects as much as the ethical ones. If someone is hurting someone else, they're doing something wrong. End of story.

LK

Re:Everything you want to know about Windows malwa

[Gazzonyx]

I worked with a guy, when we were working on malware removal techniques, who did exactly this. Our google search was either 'warez' or 'crackz', I can't recall. He even played the stupid user - "Yeah, I'm sure I can install this activeX stuff, whatever that means...The site told me to hit OK" - and the box was LEVELED beyond repair in under 5 minutes and 10 sites. We had to pull the virtual ethernet card on it. It got to the point that the box almost got beligerent as we tried to pull the malware out... This stuff isn't your typical virus from 10 years ago! I forget how many hits we picked up from adaware and spybot, but it was in the several hundreds. Oh, and it was a SP2 box, as well.

Re:Oh, yeah! Teh U-S Rulz! W00T! We Rock!

[CmdrGravy]

Advert for the Economist at the moment reads:

"Invest in the 4th largest world economy. Before it's number 1. China"

Re:Well, duh!

[Paulrothrock]

I was watching a lecture by Neil DeGrasse Tyson wherein he made the point that the country that discovered something gets to name it. The Muslim world named most of the stars in the sky. The Greeks named most of the constellations. The US named most of the heaviest elements on the table, so we get names like Californium and Berkelium.

And since we made the Internet, we get to name it. That's why there's .co.uk and not .co.us. And it's also why .gov is the US government and not .gov.us. Just like every postage stamp outside of the UK has to have the country of origin on it because the Brits invented the postage stamp, we get the TLDs because we invented the Internet.

Say what?!

[smooth wombat]

and the high level of technical knowledge.

If Americans did have a high level of technical knowledge, the amount of spyware infections (and related matters) would be significantly lower. Considering we lead the world in malware creation, that argues for a lower level of technical knowledge.

Punch the monkey to win money! Give us your email address and we'll send you free offers! Install this program to prevent infections!

Let's put it this way: I went to the dentist recently and the girl who was going to scrape my teeth asked what I did and where I worked. When I told her I work in IT and for a specific government agency, she said that she wished she knew more about computers but she didn't have the time to figure them out.

So, we have someone who admits they don't know enough about a subject yet aren't willing to take the time to learn more about it. Yup, this America. If it isn't easy, we're not interested.