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Hey everyone!

This is my first topic in this area, I am not really in the know with all of your conspiracy theories and whatnot, but I have read about what you guys talk about, and this isn't nearly as interesting as that =P however it is still fairly interesting. Just an fyi, this isn't exactly a conspiracy just propaganda of sorts (people always saying you need protection).

First some background of myself, ever since I was young I wanted to be a 'Programmer' developing applications or games. This lead to some not so legal activities once I really found the Internet and created random viruses and worms and spread them out, (Back then I basically copy and pasted code and just changed some things to do whatever I wanted). So after reviewing what I 'made' back then I see they basically targetted a single firewall\anti-virus package and would just go through the vulnerabilities in them.

So I decided to do a little experiment, first I got my laptop with Vista on it and took off all Security measures and kept the Norton Internet Security Suite on. Second, I got my desktop running XP SP 2 and I took off all Security measures all together (Nothing would ever pop-up or say a virus was present).

Now with that in place I then visited some Warez sites and downloaded keygens and cracks (anti-virus and firewalls usually say these are viruses or trojans or contain them). So what happened after a while was my Laptops explorer became widly erratic and didn't work as intended, Norton found up to 20 viruses\adware etc on it after the searching done. However my desktop had nothing wrong with it at all, it still ran normally and explorer still worked fine, I was conversing with my friend about this and he said to install AVG on my desktop and scan to see if there was anything, so I did a scan and found one cookie that MAY have been malicious (it wasn't, just crude login information for a cruddy website my friend also owed me 20 dollars afterwards).

So in conclusion:
Windows Vista, without built in security, but with Norton ended up with 20 viruses\adware etc. (I had to format my lappy at that point because it was almost unusable)

Windows XP SP2, without any security at all ended up with a cookie that may have been malicious.

I have a few theories:

Theory 1:

Due to the fact that 'everyone' now uses some kind of firewall or multiple firewalls / anti-virus packages, the creators of these malicious softwares believe to ever infect anyone they have to target specific domains i.e Norton Internet Security, AVG, Kapersky etc. (This is my most prominent theory).

Theory 2:

Malicious software creators are in fact the Firewall / Anti-Virus package makers, but use a group of 'Blackhat Script Kiddies' to create variants and different versions while also distributing them.

Theory 3:

Malicious software is created by opponents in the commercial world to fight eachother and try and get people to hate the product and switch to theirs. e.g. AVG creates a Virus that specifically targets Norton and gets people pissed with Norton, they then again use 'Script Kiddies' to do the big distribution and variant creation.

It could be any of them or a combination of them or even all 3!

Oh well, I am just going to enjoy no slow down on my computer from having an anti-virus package and needing to scan all the time =P.

If you have any questions feel free to ask, and all comments are welcome!

Thanks, K1ll3r.

All 3 are plausible. 1 does happen. Most people who do write malicious code do so on the basis of attacking as many systems as possible so going for the main operating systems, web browers and anti-virus/internet security is the best way to do it.

The next two fall under unethical practices by companies which happens all the time but is, in the main, almost impossible to prove as they will have several layers of "insulation" from the activity.

I do think the occasional world wide virus scares that are sometimes on the news are a bit of scaremongering to get people to buy anti-virus software because i never have bought them and i've never been affected by the the virus'

Originally posted by jaden101
All 3 are plausible. 1 does happen. Most people who do write malicious code do so on the basis of attacking as many systems as possible so going for the main operating systems, web browers and anti-virus/internet security is the best way to do it.

The next two fall under unethical practices by companies which happens all the time but is, in the main, almost impossible to prove as they will have several layers of "insulation" from the activity.

I do think the occasional world wide virus scares that are sometimes on the news are a bit of scaremongering to get people to buy anti-virus software because i never have bought them and i've never been affected by the the virus'

Thanks for such a quick reply, yes I believe it is all 'scaremongering' as well! Glad someone else agrees with me, most of my friends just flat out don't believe me no matter what I show them on my computer >_<.

But yeah, I done this experiment a while ago, and only just realised this forum had a conspiracy place! =0. I never really cared about online security, until my friends were all like zomeg your stuff isn't up to date and you don't have anti-virus and whatnot, but when I got those things is the only time I was bothered by them xD That is what prompted me to do the experiment.

I'm not sure what you mean by your first theory? Just because someones using Norton or whatever doesn't mean they're using that domain. They only rarely communicate with it for updates. More than likely the reason you got so many viruses is because XP SP2 is more secure (they've found most of the security vulns in it and closed them). Vista however is still fairly new and has new vulns coming out all the time. Check www.cert.org out to see about the new exploits that have been found in vista and whatnot.

According to Norton, most of the keygens or cracks were viruses or contained viruses, and would still screw with explorer \ whatever on XP SP 2.

Why would they need vulnerabilities to do anything as my desktop had no security what so ever and I was basically downloading 'viruses' and 'trojans'.

Get Ubuntu and you have no no virus problems.

Originally posted by K1ll3r
According to Norton, most of the keygens or cracks were viruses or contained viruses, and would still screw with explorer \ whatever on XP SP 2.

Why would they need vulnerabilities to do anything as my desktop had no security what so ever and I was basically downloading 'viruses' and 'trojans'.

They're not designed to exploit vulnerabilities in anti-virus software though. They're designed to exploit operating systems.

The anti virus software is only there to pick up on certain pieces of code that viruses are routinely composed of by amatuer code writers.

Originally posted by jaden101
They're not designed to exploit vulnerabilities in anti-virus software though. They're designed to exploit operating systems.

The anti virus software is only there to pick up on certain pieces of code that viruses are routinely composed of by amatuer code writers.

Aren't they? Then why do they 'need' to have new definitions all the time? I think they are designed to pose as legitimate programs or system processes (effectively tricking the anti-virus) and then somehow affect the operating system or connected hardware.

The amatuer code writers usually get a 'template' from someone more knowledgeable then them or just has it lying around.

Usually the only reason someone needs exploits is to 'actively' take control and mess with a system themselves (hijacking). Which is not what I am talking about.

After installing Cyberdefender on my computer, I haven't had any further virus issues. I run the scan and the software takes care of anything suspicious. It's so great not to have to worry about it anymore.

Originally posted by K1ll3r
Aren't they? Then why do they 'need' to have new definitions all the time? I think they are designed to pose as legitimate programs or system processes (effectively tricking the anti-virus) and then somehow affect the operating system or connected hardware.

The amatuer code writers usually get a 'template' from someone more knowledgeable then them or just has it lying around.

Usually the only reason someone needs exploits is to 'actively' take control and mess with a system themselves (hijacking). Which is not what I am talking about.

You're thinking that the new definitions are heuristic, but the vast majority are not. They are specific definitions to catch a specific type of virus, usually. True that certain types of actions will usually be flagged as malicious by your virus software and those have more vague, heuristic signatures.

Since there are literally tens of thousands of hackers world wide, it shouldn't come as a surprise that a new definition for that malicious software has to be consistently defined.

Also, most hackers are hybrids. The best hackers most certainly are. Hybrids between script kiddie and veteran hacker. True hackers come up with new programs and hacking algorithms in tandem with existing "scripts" to make the most of what they are doing.

If someone who is a really good hacker, REALLY wanted to get into a system, they almost always can. Add people to that group and the probability of success increases to almost 100%.

These days, it is becoming more of a combination of social engineering, recycled scripts/malicious code, and original hacking. This is really shitty to defened against because employees are stupid.


I do believe that some malicious software comes from the major software defenders. Cyber wars are being fought ALL the time between countries. Just trust me on this one.

My routing professor, a professor of many decades, told me that it is simple probabilities that some malicious software comes from the software protection groups. Some of it is simply to test their OSs for their routers, some of it is developed to "white hat" test their systems and software and some of that leaks, probably on purpose, into black hat hands.

Also, I am going to school for Cyber Security....this will be my life. I don't find it that interesting, but it pays well and I'm really good with computers... so meh.

I use Cyberdefender too and I've never had any viruses or trjans things on my system. I feel very safe and secure.