MyDoom seeks to destroy antivirus firms

Antivirus companies are perplexed by a spate of recent viruses that contain messages in which the writers threaten to attack them.

Worm writers are threatening to attack antivirus companies F-Secure, Symantec, Trend Micro and McAfee.

In the latest version of MyDoom--MyDoom.AE--the authors embedded a message ridiculing rival worm Netsky and promising to attack the antivirus companies.

The message has left antivirus companies unsure of what to expect.

"It remains to be seen what they mean by threatening to attack us," said Mikko Hypponen, director of antivirus research for F-Secure. "That might mean a denial-of-service attack. We've been a target before, but they haven't tried any recently."

Hypponen said the message included comments on previous viruses, poking fun at the Netsky writer Sven Jaschan for being arrested: "Because Jaschan has been arrested, he is no longer a player in the virus war. And MyDoom wanted to highlight they had won the war."

The message read: "Lucky's Av's ;P~. Sasser author gets IT security job and we will work with Mydoom, P2P worms and exploit codes. Also we will attack f-secure, symantec, trendmicro, mcafee, etc. The 11th of march is the skynet day lol. When the beagle and mydoom loose, we wanna stop our activity <== so Where is the Skynet now? lol."

The worm has yet to cause any significant damage because it was released over the weekend, Hypponen added.

On F-Secure's Web log, Hypponen wrote that he was astonished virus writers continued to create worms when they knew there was a $250,000 bounty for information leading to their capture.

Dan Ilett of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[dejc]

Virus Writers !!!

I can't see why big companies are giving virus writers jobs. In that case why should writers stop, from the way I look at it, the smarter you are at it, the faster you're gonna get a job with these companies. Would you hire someone to work at your bank if that person tried to rob you. Virus writing is an ongoing game,everybody is trying to outdo everybody else. It's a challenge that will never go away, you always want to do better than the last time, just to see if they can outdo themselves,it's a game that writers will never give up because of the challenge or thrill they get of creating one more that's just better than the last one. It's the thrill of the chase. Further more who knows what these writers will do after a big corporation hires them on good or bad. Of course this is just my opinion & everybody's entitled to an opinion. Regards: dejc...