[CS-FSLUG] For you Journalists

[Nathan T.]

On 3/11/06, Ed Hurst <ehurst at asisaid.com> wrote:
> Nathan T. wrote:
[snip]
>
> On this one point there is a weakness. The crackers who create and run
> botnets ("botnet herders") will constantly compete for each others'
> machines. They will write a malware package designed to remove other
> malware. Others mindlessly pile on until a given machine stops
> responding altogether. Since the process is largely automated, no
> infected machine is "an unattractive target".
>
> --
> Ed Hurst

That's a good point Ed, but even though virus writers aren't actively
involved in spreading their malware, they still see whether or not it
was a success by its rank on AV sites. If the computers it's infecting
are already crippled with malware it won't spread as well as it could.
Consider also the bragging rights for writing a successful virus that
infects Linux or Mac OS X. Virus writers do brag, they just use pen
names hoping they don't get caught. The bragging rights for breaking
into a more secure Linux or Mac OS X box should also be considerably
higher than what one would get for breaking into yet another Windows
box.

It's true that they are capable of competing over the Windows boxes
and the competition isn't too hard yet, but if all operating systems
were as equally insecure as Windows consider how attractive an ample
number of Linux or OS X machines would be.