'Ratware' is making spam a whole lot easier to serve up

Economic incentives drive virus and hacker communities

SURELY ONE OF the most unsettling developments in recent years has been the convergence of the virus community with spammers.

Each of these groups is a nightmare all by itself, but the idea of their working together is not a pleasant one. That, however, is the trend according to Charles Cousins, the managing director of Sophos, Asia.

In the beginning, it was spotty teenagers who wrote viruses and they were simply trying to seek attention. There may not be much money in that pursuit, but there is plenty in spam.

'While it is true that people still write viruses for other reasons, an economic incentive is driving innovation in the virus and hacker communities in a different direction - namely quietly hijacking, rather than noisily vandalising, computer systems,' he said. 'Previously, these groups just wanted to gain notoriety, which meant causing obvious damage. Now they have a financial incentive which changes the aim of viruses and makes everyone a target.'

This financial incentive means that they are not likely to give up soon. It may seem utterly ridiculous to most of us that there is any money in all this but unfortunately gullibility has no borders. If you imagine that only 5 per cent of all spam is successful, you will easily see that it is worth it to some.