JMH
Emeritus, Contributor
- Apr 2, 2012
- 7,197
Why do hackers hack and spammers spam?
- Thread starter JMH
- Start date
AceInfinity
Emeritus, Contributor
Ever heard of Stuxnet? :) I'm well familiarized with malware and how most of them work, I used to do malware analysis. Open up a VM and seeing how infected files tick, to see how I could improve or better my own personal awareness and with that the security of my own home PC's based on common concepts implemented in malicious files and such.
With Stuxnet, this was a CIA virus as far as I know, and was intended to go out in search of certain controllers by searching computer drivers associated with it, and when found it would bind itself to that system, otherwise these bots would bugger off and look for a new route to another PC out on the net. This particular recent virus however, found a valid security flaw in the explorer shell, so it had gone undetected for a few years I believe.
Recently people spotted this virus' existance however, and people started to reverse engineer the instructions/source code of this network virus, and the dangerous part about this is now this uncovers a new pandemic of a wave of superviruses, as for giving others a look inside pandora's box on how to exploit Windows. Not sure how well we are secured against this quite yet, but initially it wasn't for malicious intent, it was to go over to Iran and retrieve information for potential nuclear sites I believe, and relay them back to the deployers of the network bot.
Some viruses are created for the intent of financial benefits; ie: Ransomware Trojans in specific. These you don't want to get. They will basically hold all of your files hostage on your computer until you do something to release them. And in most cases it's paying someone to deactivate it for you; the creator of the virus.
Spammers to me is more of the intention to advertise or get something that they want from my experience, but I know some hackers hack for fun, to see how much damage they can do, or to provide a greater need for things like Antiviruses and Firewalls. Without the need for this, how would Malware analysts have a job? So with that in mind, where does malware come from and who do you think creates at least some of the viruses that exist out there? :wink11a:
With Stuxnet, this was a CIA virus as far as I know, and was intended to go out in search of certain controllers by searching computer drivers associated with it, and when found it would bind itself to that system, otherwise these bots would bugger off and look for a new route to another PC out on the net. This particular recent virus however, found a valid security flaw in the explorer shell, so it had gone undetected for a few years I believe.
Recently people spotted this virus' existance however, and people started to reverse engineer the instructions/source code of this network virus, and the dangerous part about this is now this uncovers a new pandemic of a wave of superviruses, as for giving others a look inside pandora's box on how to exploit Windows. Not sure how well we are secured against this quite yet, but initially it wasn't for malicious intent, it was to go over to Iran and retrieve information for potential nuclear sites I believe, and relay them back to the deployers of the network bot.
Some viruses are created for the intent of financial benefits; ie: Ransomware Trojans in specific. These you don't want to get. They will basically hold all of your files hostage on your computer until you do something to release them. And in most cases it's paying someone to deactivate it for you; the creator of the virus.
Spammers to me is more of the intention to advertise or get something that they want from my experience, but I know some hackers hack for fun, to see how much damage they can do, or to provide a greater need for things like Antiviruses and Firewalls. Without the need for this, how would Malware analysts have a job? So with that in mind, where does malware come from and who do you think creates at least some of the viruses that exist out there? :wink11a:
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Just my 2ยข
It all revolves around power or money.
Power - controlling others (and their systems)
Money - earning money from the infections or from the information obtained from the "hack"
As for SPAM - people will pay you for making other people look at their stuff. That's how some forums pay the bills - on a "per-click" basis.
I don't like it (that's why you'll never find ads at http://www.carrona.org ), but it's a fact of life (not just on the internet, but in your snail mail box, or even those people stuffing leaflets under your windshield wiper).
It all revolves around power or money.
Power - controlling others (and their systems)
Money - earning money from the infections or from the information obtained from the "hack"
As for SPAM - people will pay you for making other people look at their stuff. That's how some forums pay the bills - on a "per-click" basis.
I don't like it (that's why you'll never find ads at http://www.carrona.org ), but it's a fact of life (not just on the internet, but in your snail mail box, or even those people stuffing leaflets under your windshield wiper).
That is all good debate on why spammers spam and virus authors write viruses, but I don't feel it really covers why hackers hack. There are quite a few reasons, but sometimes it is just because they find hacking fun 
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