Who Writes Viruses

Remember that kid in high school, the one with the uncool sneakers, the no-name jeans, or the tape on his glasses? You should have been nicer, because now he's in charge of the computer system where you work. He can see all your files, your emails, and he knows what websites you visit. The creator of a computer virus may have revenge, corporate sabotage, or political upheaval in mind; he or she may be naively experimenting with software techniques; or the writer may be looking for notoriety. But the typical virus writer may not be the malcontented miscreant in our stereotypes. Some research shows that most live apparently normal lives, but share an undeveloped sense of ethics. Hmmm, sorta like serial killers...

In March of 1999, the Melissa virus began spreading through the Internet via a Word document with an infected macro. The virus exploited Outlook Express to email itself as an attachment to the first 50 people in the user's email address book. The virus-laden emails were sent with a subject line of "Important message from [name]" and text reading "Here is that document you asked for" in the message body, which caused it to spread very quickly. Over a million computers were infected, causing an estimated $80 million in damage. David Smith, the author of Melissa, first posted the infected Word document to the alt.sex newsgroup on Usenet, claiming that it contained passwords allowing free access to adult websites. Smith was caught within a few days, and plead guilty to a federal charge of spreading a computer virus. He paid a $5000 fine and served 20 months in prison.