VIRUS Breaks Speed Records- HACKER Culture

[Rob]

Wow, thats pretty fast, well made.
Lol I had the idea for the same virus a few years ago now! hehehe. Used to hack a bit too.
I actually know one guy, who is a PROPER hacker (unlike I was, total neophyte). They are, on the whole, a good group. Its only the stupid ones around the edges who hack into major sites and destroy everything. Most of them are just interested in getting to the bottom of code, and if they do hack sites, they will respectfully move everything to another directory (ie leave everything intact), before putting up something like the hackers manifesto on the front page. Or something amusing.
On the whole, they are some of the most intelligent and able computer people around. Which is what I think amuses them - they know more about computers than 99% of system admins do. Hence why they can do what they do.
Rob

[liz mccal]

Thank you Peacefull Warrior.  I just had the Wormblaster bug on my computer it was down for a week. I have 3 fire walls on that one because it si also business computer at home.  gezzzz is this a diffrent one?



Liz[:I]

[PeacefulWarrior]

Yep, I think it is.  But with what you have protecting you, I wouldn't worry about it.  See, like Rob I think hackers can be funny, but when they start causing the working people time and money, I think they have gone too far and need to be prosecuted.  I know a local library that had to shut down, is that really fair or funny for all the kis who don't get to get books, etc?  I think not.

[shadowatcher]

My father is very much into the hacker culture, because he runs a .COM company, and handles security. I'll ask him about it, and if he knows why the virus creators had a built in endpoint for the virus. Perhaps the virus will "mutate" to become more dangerous.

[PeacefulWarrior]

The following is an article from CNN. Very interesting and very sad. In my opinion, this kind of coverage promotes a kind of competitive spirit amongst hackers: "Dude, their virus broke our record!"

I don't know how many of you know much about the hacker culture, but it's big and often glorified.  Anyway, check out this article: (by the way, a girl in one of my classes told me her brothers consulting firm was effectively shut down for 48 hours and it cost them an estimated half-million in losses...ouch!)

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SoBig.F breaks virus speed records
Friday, August 22, 2003 Posted: 2:25 AM EDT (0625 GMT)


(CNN) -- The SoBig.F computer virus -- which has already overwhelmed hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide -- has become the fastest spreading virus ever with experts warning the worst is yet to come.

Already the worm has caused an estimated $50 million of damage in the United States alone.

Among its casualties: It briefly brought freight and computer traffic in Washington, D.C. to a halt, grounded Air Canada and slowed down computer systems at many major companies such as advanced technology firm Lockheed Martin.

The sixth or "F" version of the SoBig infection disguises itself in e-mails which once opened scan a computer for e-mail addresses before sending scores of messages to the addresses it collected via its own inbuilt sending program.

The SoBig.F outbreak, first detected Monday, began 10 days after the Blaster worm (which itself infected an estimated 500,000 users) and has already beaten other infamous viruses such as LoveBug, Klez and Kournikova in terms of spread.

The first SoBig variant was released in January.

U.S.-based e-mail security group MessageLabs says the virus originated and is most prevalent in the United States.

"This is the most severe e-mail virus we've ever seen," MessageLabs' Josh White said.

"At its peak 1 out of 17 e-mails that we were processing was a copy of the SoBig.F virus. Certainly we haven't seen numbers like this before. It is spreading at a very fast rate and the volumes are high."

Internet service provider AOL (part of the AOL Time Warner group which includes CNN) says it scanned 40.5 million e-mails and found the virus in more than half. SoBig accounted for 98 percent of all viruses found.

The e-mail-borne worm arrives with various subject headers, such as: Your details, Thank you!, Re: Thank you!, Re: Details, Re: Re: My details, Re: Approved, Re: Your application, Re: Wicked screensaver or Re: That movie.

The body of the message is short and usually contains either "See the attached file for details" or "Please see the attached file for details."

Fooled that the e-mail is legitimate, the user opens the e-mail and triggers the worm, which then goes hunting for addresses. The flood of messages it then sends are capable of succumbing other users' inboxes or computer systems by the sheer volume of e-mails.

Worrying sign
The virus also implements a background program that turns an infected computer into a relay system for further messages from the virus' creator.

This part of the virus has led many computer security experts to believe the virus was written to try and beat spam filters.

Experts are predicting that though it will soon be brought under control, the infection is likely to spike early next week as many people in Europe and the U.S. return to work from (northern hemisphere) summer holidays to awaiting e-mail inboxes.

However, the worm is set to deactivate September 10 and halt further propagation. This itself is a worrying sign.

"The SoBig virus writer's use of an inbuilt expiry date indicates he is committed to inventing new and improved versions," MessageLabs' chief technology officer Mark Sunner said.

"Each variant released so far has exceeded the previous one in growth and impact during the critical initial window of vulnerability."

-- CNN Correspondent Bill Tucker contributed to this report.