|
7 Things to Know about Virus Writers
by Monte Embysk
 reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center
I spend a growing percentage
of my time getting rid of unwanted e-mails that contain viruses. If I
open one of them, it potentially could overwrite files and disable my
antivirus software.
What exactly is in the heads
of these virus writers? Anything?
I took my inquiry to Sarah
Gordon, an expert on the psychology of hackers and virus writers. She
did her best to answer an overly broad question. Gordon is a senior
research fellow at Symantec's security response unit, and previously was
a researcher for the antivirus research and development team at IBM's
Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
She meets face-to-face with
hackers and virus writers on occasion, to understand why they do what
they do, and conducts research at international hacker conferences such
as DEF CON. To see Gordon's background and some of her research papers,
visit her Web site at www.badguys.org.
Read more
|
How do the software police
find out if you are running illegal copies of software?
One of the more popular methods is notification from
your former employees. Yesiree. If someone knows
your hard drives better than you do, and they don’t have
fond memories of the days on your payroll, you have the
makings of a visit from a software compliance cop.
Congratulations. 
