How are viruses and malware created ?

Question

Though creating a malware or virus is an offence and attracts punishment, I think the people who create them must be geniuses to have known how to penetratre security blocks and get bad things done.

But how do they create these viruses and malware ?
What computer language do they use ?
How does a virus work in harmony with an operating system ?

Could somebody explain these things in detail, please ?

PS: No funny answers, please.

Answer 1

The computer Language isn't important. I assume as long as it can run natively on the operating system it can written in anything (I recall a story of a guy writing a virus in BASIC for the office printers in the place he was fired from) But from what I understand most venerablities in the system are written in C.

Viruses don't work in "harmony" with the system, rather they hide themselves inside/behind the processes your computer normally runs. A lot of the time they'll hide inside the system restore where they'll reinfect a computer after a time. One of the key issues with windows is it's memory allocation. A virus asks for CPU, it gets it. Nix systems are more resistant against this.

Creation depends on what the virus is supposed to do. I remember I had a friend whose dad worked at a company where they wiped the system clean each night. To prove to his dad that the system was venerable he wrote a simple program that would put the piece of malware inside of a locked system folder and continue to copy itself inside the folder until it grew so large it crashed the system. In a way this was a simple program that repeated "rightclick copy" over and over again, other badware items are more complex. Their just like your webbrower, written to carry out a certain function.

These guys aren't geniuses, Its the operating system. Windows consists of millions of lines of code, examining all of these to make them perfect is almost impossible. All systems (Linux, Mac, Windows) have holes. Most of the time one jackass just finds a hole and exploits it.

As for spread... Most viruses and malware are spread via bad websites and P2P nowadays.

its not a great explanation.. but i'm tired. Anyone correct me if i'm wrong.

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

The first virus known in Computers was a malware script that was essentially harmless. It was written on a Apple/Macintosh. After that, it gets rather fuzzy. Most viri and junk are written in Basic,C,and VB. They are naturally written to execute on the most popular and best selling OS in the world, Microsoft.
Bill Gates wrote a good OS program, Microsoft is the Corporation that owns Windows3,95,98,NT,2000,XP and now Vista. Because these computers are so oft used, the malicious code is easily launched or ran on them. The success of the system is what is said to be the reasoning behind the malicious code.
I have no idea who would write a virus code, or why. That part is just stupid.
Look up Virus, Peter Norton, Symantech, AVG, Grisoft, CAI, Authentium, there are a hundred corporations that make and sell defensive programs, but nothing is as good or as reliable as a good backup of data routine. This is the only for certain way to avoid data loss by misuse,misadventure or circumstances that are unforseen.

Answer 4

You would need to know assembly language to create real nifty virus. other viruses are in vbs etc. If you are really interested on knowing how they are created.goto www.google.com and type creating viruses. This would give you some source codes you can look at.
Some of the malware makers work for porn sites primarily to make a fast buck.

Answer 5

virus infects, corrupts or deletes files and folders, damages the system, drops other dangerous parasites, steals or discloses user sensitive information. Extremely dangerous viruses can also wipe out all the data from hard disks and even severely damage certain computer hardware devices.

i'm not sure how viruses are created, i think they are programmed to replicate themselves and take over computer this way. i guess they can be written in any programing language.

and also, they don't work in harmony with operating system!

that's only a guess.

Answer 6

well if you need to know about malware or viruses first thing you need to know are the legal aspects related to it. a virus spread from your machine to another even by mistake could attract legal trouble in many countries. http://groups.google.com/group/cyber-law-india provides whats happening at the cyberspace end with a legal point of view. so just to make sure how that one click you make by mistake on a virus does not turn out to be lethal. do check out the group regularly.

Answer 7

Kids as young as 11 can and have out there some pretty nasty computer viruses they create for sick kicks. It just takes one's passion for computer programming mixed with a sick twisted mind to create one. Fortunately, the FBI is fast catching virus creators; many finding fast jail time--and kids creating PC viruses find it's not so eary to wriggle out from trouble being a "minor". Some PC users even whisper rumors of the major popular anti-virus pay services hire hackers to create viruses to hype up their business.....all rumor, of course.

PC viruses can be written in any of the available and currently used computer languages and formats: from Basic to Borlean encryption. The time malicious viruses take to affect a system vary from a few seconds to days, weeks even months. Time bomb viruses used to lie well embedded within a PCs BIOS clock software, set to go off a certain day and time.

Today, PC users often grow uneasy having their computers on and online during major observed holidays like Valentine's Day, Halloween or Christmas. But with advancements in virus detection and clean-up, most can surf worry free--given the anti-virus scanner is updated and running.

The common vehicle for carrying PC viruses are spam and/or the "pass this on" e-chain letter--both advised to be deleted on sight--regardless of who sends them. If you don't know who sent it, delete it. Also avoid opening e-letter attachments that end in .rar or .zip; both known to be red flags for viruses.

PC viruses are illegal to create and send out. Malware and/or spyware, however IS legal. Widely used by major corporate online business, information services and yes---porn peddlers, spyware is just that--a simple program that "tracks" where you go on the net and reports that information back to its target. Carefully read the Privacy Policy of a website.

There are free anti-virus scanners, like AVG and a great many free anti-spyware programs like Crap Cleaner, Spybot Search N' Destroy that with use prior to and after online surfing can give you the advantage against PC attacks from viruses and spyware.

Answer 8

Usually they are created in a different system than you want to attack. If you do not like Windows. You write it on a Linux.
You have to know the operating system you are trying to attack pretty well.

Answer 9

People make them, sometimes they just happen on theer own, Internet is like a flu.