On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 21:46:12 +0000, Tim Tyler wrote:
> Viruses can mail out change of address messages to everyone in the
> compromised machine's address book today.
>
> Of course, viruses don't bother doing that - since it's stupid and
> pointless.
>
> If you've compromised someone's machine there are typically lots more
> rewarding things to do with it than spoof change-of-address notices.
Yes. But erasing hard drives is stupid and pointless, and viruses written
by digital vandals do exactly that.
Viruses *these days* are mostly written by criminals looking to make
money, not criminals looking to do the equivalent of smashing your windows
and running away.
Suppose I wanted to gather industrial espionage about, oh, say Roedy
Green. If my virus could impersonate him, I could tell everyone in sight
that his email has changed to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (or wherever). I would
harvest his email, forward it on to him so he doesn't even notice, and
sell the data to the highest bidder. Or use it for blackmail. Or sell it
to companies who want to buy demographic and purchasing information ("I
see he has bought seven books from Amazon this month...").
If you think this is too ridiculous for words, think of this: how valuable
to Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates do you think Google's internal emails
would be?
Information is power, and power makes money.
--
Steven.
--
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