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A comment on Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software.

Re:Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software by delegate on Thursday January 26, 2017 @04:48AM (#13490028)
Who writes all these viruses ?

I mean, I've experimented with assembler when I was a teenager and I may have developed some kind of program which could replicate itself.. but I highly doubt today's viruses are written by teenagers...

Who and why do people write viruses ? Is this a thing at all or are all the viruses written by the Antivirus makers themselves ?

More 'threats' is good news for the A/V makers so why not have a separate department which develops them ?

I wouldn't be surprised at all, given that much crazier things are happening in this world..

Can anyone confirm or disprove this ?

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Re:Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software by billbail on Thursday January 26, 2017 @05:38AM (#13490259)
If you want to know more about the creators of these viruses I'd highly suggest reading Krebs on Security [1] as he often not only covers the viruses but also some of the authors.

[1]: http://krebsonsecurity.com/

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Re:Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software by gtirloni on Thursday January 26, 2017 @05:18AM (#13490160)
Confirm that AV vendors are writing the viruses themselves in order to boost their sales? Good luck with that.

There are plenty of reasons why people write malware/viruses, often for financial reasons. The old days of a teenager writing some virus in assembly to infect bootsectors for the lulz is way past us. Today you're looking at malware, often exploiting social engineering, to create botnets for DDoS, spam, boosting social profiles, etc.

Occam's razor helps :)

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Re:Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software by Maakuth on Thursday January 26, 2017 @04:55AM (#13490057)
If you have some time to watch a video, here's a clip of F-Secure's Mikko Hyppönen expaining some of the origins of network attacks and malware: https://www.ted.com/talks/mikko_hypponen_fighting_viruses_de...
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Re:Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software by hsivonen on Thursday January 26, 2017 @05:54AM (#13490339)
Speaking of F-Secure, has taviso just not looked at F-Secure yet or does F-Secure not have egregious blunders?
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Re:Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software by neko_koneko on Thursday January 26, 2017 @04:51AM (#13490042)
There are many criminal groups that develop malware - it's a multi-million dollar business.
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