There are quite a few reasons behind this. Here are what I think a few are; 1) Out of interest. It's fun to create a computer program. I personally enjoyed making a game. Some people enjoy making viruses and seeing if it works. 2) Some people just enjoy messing with people, either in jest or maliciously. There are viruses which only do something fairly innocent like showing a message. Then there are ones which will mess up things on your PC. 3) Profit. It's possibly to harness people's processing power for things like generating bitcoin I hear. Another is to send out spam. Another method is stealing financial details directly.
You know, there's a whole lotta reasons why these people make viruses but of course none of these reasons are good ones. One of these viruses allow the hackers to see everything on your computer, especially webcams and pictures. But viruses like the one I mentioned are made mainly for the hackers to get access to private pictures and documents, or just for their entertainment.
Well at the moment probably the most famous hackers are the "anonymous" group of hackers. They've hacked into all sorts of government and big corporation systems. They go into these systems, shut them down for a while then give access or restore things back to normal. They've been called terrorists, but they claim that they are just protesting against different things, and this is a peaceful way to protest.
I feel like this is actually a fair point. It gets noticed a lot more than people protesting with signs, you can do it from anywhere in the world if you have the skills and while it may cut into profit, it doesn't harm anyone directly. If they were to change the an unfair company's or a hate group's website into something else as a protest, then it seems like a good way to make yourself heard by them.
Yeah I kind of see why the people at anonymous do what they do, there are many hacker groups who use the anonymous name but the real group doesn't hack for the fun of it. They always return access and undo the damage they cause. And they always explain why the hack was done.
A lot of purposes for people that make viruses actually. Mostly are curious computer students trying out what they really can. Exploring their skills and making it as their basic learning curve for what they were truly capable. Others are professionals paid by companies to break in to their securities to look for flaws and bugs for them to enable to fix it. Others are no good hackers who wants your information especially credit cards, bank accounts etc. to steal your money. And lastly, others who just dont have anything to do good and are just doing it for fun.
Surely I've been asking myself the same question! I find myself inclined to believe that it has a alot to do with the anti-virus companies. Ask yourself how the anti virus companies would survive if there were no viruses being created on a daily basis?! It is the case where one man's poison is another's food!
Can't believe I had to scroll down 15 posts to find the real answer to this problem. Virus makers aren't in the business to prove that they're better than others, or to test their skills (this may have been the case ~5-10 years ago, but much less so today). The real reason these people create viruses is to bloat out your computer and turn it into a profit driving machine through using your computer's memory to do tasks such as click banner ads, mine bitcoins, or even attack other computers alongside other infected computers as a botnet.
I guess it is to gain a sense of achievement. I think it is a stupid idea though, and if they really want to create viruses that have the potential to wreck data on computers, then they should do it as a hobby on their OWN computer hardware! instead of wrecking innocent peoples' computers. Most of the viruses today are usually avoidable if you have any basic internet and house keeping knowledge, but still, I don't think it's fair at all to have people build viruses in order to ruin data.
I think they do it for the power play and just to be trolls. Some also do it just to try to scam people out of money and steal their information. I can see how people would want to do it out of boredom too. Sorry you got attacked. Have you tried to attach it to another computer and clean it out? Wipe the drive and reinstall?
Wow, if that's the case, then count me in! Lol. I don't want to destroyer another person's PC. All I'd like to do is to make a profit. Hehe. No just kidding, I'd like to make a profit by being fair and square and not use somebody else's computer.
They're bored and want to flex their internet muscles because they can and usually don't have any real muscles to flex in real life! The majority of viruses out there aren't terribly harmful, they're simply annoying. People make viruses for the same reason people exploit glitches in video games - it's a way of appearing smarter than the person who designed the original software. I've never really understood the psychology behind it myself but that's the internet for you.
Not all computer viruses necessarily have a malicious intent, despite them being a nuisance. Some may simply be social experiments to see how far they can propogate and what the potential reach is based on a given technique.
Doubtful - you can do that in a controlled sandbox, you can do a simulation (again controlled), or you can generate a conclusive stance with gathered data... there isn't any reason to make an actual virus that you introduce to the public.
And if they got infect by your virus/trojan or whatever you send to him, then he couldn't be a hacker.
I feel its like the same thing as asking why are there horrible people in this world. Therefore the answer in my opinion is that where something can go wrong there will always be a curious mind trying to make it go wrong for his or her own pleasure.
I think people make them out of curiosity, and a little bit of feeling superior. Some people make them to better their skills, and hone them. I mean in some way there may be a use for viruses in some way. I wouldn't know because I am not a hacker.
Exactly this. People who make large viruses make for out of using them for a botnet than they do stealing your financial info A botnet is a group of compromised computers being harnessed to perform a task. DDoS attacks are usually dont by botnets. thousands of computers send requests to a server at once and overload the server. The person who calls in the attack usually pays the person who "controls" the compromised computers.
There's a good living to be made by breaking into people's computers and stealing everything they work so hard for. Many find their way in, by getting you to download something (torrent sites are huge for this, so know who you download from!), then they get your info as quickly as possible.. sometimes giving you computer issues to distract you while they do so. others will tap in to your camera.. watch you without you knowing. Sometimes for the fun of it, sometimes to gain access to more info. Sometimes to sell you, so to speak. Cover your cams, is my suggestion.. it's not a paranoia either.. look it up. They're quite proud of themselves, you'll find the conversations everywhere. be careful who you download from.
It all boils down about MONEY. When a user encounters a virus, this would keep him from doing what he normally does. So say for example, if you are a consumer who regularly accesses a certain service and since you are encountering a virus attack, you probably wouldn't be able to access that service and that company would lose money. Denial of service attack in some sort. There are also those people who want to feel the sense of fulfillment by destroying others' computers. For fun. They just love putting other people's lives into misery. Remember when the "I Love You" virus was able to attack the Pentagon? That particular virus has caused a lot of companies billions of dollars due to the fact that their businesses were disrupted. So again, it all boils down to MONEY.
