Mikko Hypponen's Malware Odyssey 51
CowboyRobot writes "Security expert Mikko Hypponen talks about his experience at F-Secure, including adventures such as flying to Lahore to interview the creators of 'Brain,' one of the early computer viruses that was spread manually on floppy disks. But while the early virus creators were just trying to have fun and learn, modern malware makers are motivated only by money. 'But there's a misconception that they all necessarily make a lot of money. There's a hierarchy of workers, with some just making a few hundred dollars to $1,000 doing the dirty work of the more experienced online criminals who make the real money.'"
error correction (Score:4, Interesting)
"Security expert and notorious self-promoter Mikko Hypponen"
"modern malware makers are motivated mainly by money, just as most of the antivirus industry, including F-Secure".
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"Security expert and notorious self-promoter Mikko Hypponen"
"modern malware makers are motivated mainly by money, just as most of the antivirus industry, including F-Secure".
Everyone is motivated by money to a certain extent
The simple reality is that without money you cannot live. You need money to pay for food, housing and everything else you need in this world. You can try and not let money be your primary motivation in all things (for instance I could earn far more if I did a job I did not enjoy as much as being a software developer) but ultimately money always comes into these things as we live in a capitalist society based on money.
My chosen career would probably involve s
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Ted talk on Crack economics [youtube.com]
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Thanks dude, that was a really interesting talk! :)
brennz notorious "ne'er-do-well" troll: A question (Score:1)
""Security expert and notorious self-promoter Mikko Hypponen" "modern malware makers are motivated mainly by money, just as most of the antivirus industry, including F-Secure"." - by brennz (715237) on Wednesday September 19, @08:12PM (#41394357)
Who isn't motivated by ANYTHING since he hasn't done shit himself to help out the problem in malware out there online or otherwise... right? Bet I am!
* I don't even KNOW you, but I dislike your attitude immensely, for what it is - trolling!
QUESTION:
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What have YOU ever done that helped others vs. the malware-in-general threat out there, hmmm?
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(Fact is - I'd almost be willing to BET you haven't done a damned thing yourself based on your thoughts you posted that I quoted above...)
APK
P.S.=> Know what I a
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Pauley Perette can save me any time she wants.
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Yep, the entertainment industry, including the print media, do seem to be in love with that bogus image.
The image:competence ratio is pretty well understood for these kinds of things.
I never had any qualms about approaching the "conventional" and "normal" female IT staff for info or advice because I knew they were usually good for it.
But I didn't waste time on the Goths in black, with the tats, and the piercings, and the 'tude, because at least 90% of the time they didn't have a clue, although they'd try to
Stuxnet certainly wasn't about money (Score:5, Insightful)
Some malware these days is militarily and politically motivated too.
don't be so sure (Score:2)
Spending $BIGBUCKS on Stuxnet may be cheaper than spending $BIGGERBUCKS getting rid of Iranian nuclear ambitions the old fashioned way and certainly cheaper than $EVENBIGGERBUCKS of cleaning up after they drop The Bomb on $ALLY.
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Oh I am sure many people love to believe that. It makes the world a simple and easy place. Power, ego, and ideology play an important role that should not be underestimated.
Surely they aren't ALL in it just for money (Score:1)
Surely there's one or two still left doing it for education, to prove a point, or just for the LULZ.
Officer Friendly Says: (Score:5, Funny)
"Remember kids, blue collar crime does not pay; and, honestly, most of the lower rungs of white collar crime are only classified that way so that they can keep you on salary rather than pay overtime and don't pay all that well either."
Crime really doesn't pay that well (Score:5, Insightful)
You discover when you look at it that it doesn't escape normal economic rules, in that the lower tier people doing menial work don't make tons of money, they make low wages. Even at the higher end it really doesn't pay that well, comparatively. You look at the drug lords and say "Wow those guys have a lot of money," but realize it is very few of them. then compare them to their legit rivals, the top tier businessmen like Gates, Buffet, Bezos, and so on, and they really don't compare all that well.
Crime ultimately ends up being just another kind of business.
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When analysing the economics of the mafia, there has not yet been consensus reached on whether to analyse them as a business (producer-customer model) or as a government (entity wielding force, with tax-raising privileges).
Well... that sucks for them. (Score:2)
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just remember if you can't guess their password just type "backdoor" and you can gain access to any and all systems at least that is what Hollywood taught me.
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Spammers profit even if NO ONE falls for spam. They only have to convince their "clients" that someone does.
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Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the mone
In other words just like any other industry (Score:2)
At first look (Score:2)
Malware would cease to be profitable (Score:1)
If stupid people would quit clicking on stupid things.
Re:Malware would cease to be profitable (Score:4, Insightful)
We both know this is about as likely to happen as a dog ceasing to lick their balls. They do it because they can and it seems like a good idea at the time.
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Tis sadly yet verily true.
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The problem is that the Mafia lords lick their balls right? Sorry, having trouble following the metaphor.
error correction 2 (Score:2)
"viruses that was spread manually" ... There have been a few manual viruses, notably Good Times, and The Honor System Virus, but I'm pretty sure Brain was automatic.
It's sad that we've gotten to the point where anything short of an outright worm is considered "manual".
Fuck yeah, security theater! (Score:2, Funny)
Hypponen's security must-haves: A nifty tool, which is not ours but which I'd like to recommend, is Flag for Chrome or the Firefox equivalent, Flagfox. It's a handy extension, which shows a flag in the URL bar of the browser, indicating the country where the website is hosted. This comes handy in more cases than you'd think.
lol
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It's kind of silly, but it could tip off the less knowledgeable that something is wrong when they click a phishing link and see that their bank is suddenly hosted in Russia.
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And what if the link is in US, is it any safer?
And what is they are ordering a Thinkpad, and they "discover" that they are talking to a Chinese server?
It's pointless. There is no added security assurance in lack of scary foreign people operating the server.
Lahore is in Pakistan (Score:2)
Umlauts (Score:1)