Member Avatar for zeroth

There is an ongoing argument on where you pick up viruses (we´re not talking about spyware here) What do you think? Do you have specific examples or instances you can tell about?

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Dani AI

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Short answer: viruses (a subset of “malware”) are written by people and shipped from other people’s machines or build systems — they do not appear spontaneously. The term “virus” strictly means self‑replicating code that attaches to hosts; today most infections seen in the wild are delivered by trojans, loaders and ransomware rather than classic file‑infecting viruses. (crowdstrike.com)

Early history helps explain the idea. Self‑replicating experiments on ARPANET in the early 1970s (the “Creeper”/“Reaper” story) showed the technique long before personal‑computer viruses; the first widely‑noticed PC boot‑sector virus came in the mid‑1980s. ’s memory of 1970s Unix/TENEX experiments is on point — those experiments and later academic demonstrations are the roots of the problem. (en.wikipedia.org)

Where infections actually come from now: historically P2P/share sites and infected floppy disks were common vectors (the Kazaa era), but modern large‑scale attacks more often start with social engineering (malspam/phishing and credential theft), exploited/unpatched vulnerabilities, drive‑by/browser‑based downloads and targeted supply‑chain compromises. Enterprise incident data shows credential abuse and phishing among the top initial access methods today. and correctly flagged risky downloads and ads — those remain dangerous, but they’re only part of today’s picture. (verizon.com)

Practical, timeless controls: keep OS/software and firmware patched; enforce phishing‑resistant multi‑factor authentication; use modern endpoint detection (EDR) and email filtering; disable autorun on removable media; apply least privilege and network segmentation; and maintain tested, offline backups. CISA’s mitigation guidance and incident response advice collect these into actionable steps for organizations and individuals. Those countermeasures are the best way to make a machine stop being a launchpad for the next outbreak. (cisa.gov)

Notes: posts that blame a single vendor, region, or “antivirus companies” oversimplify. Malware authors and ecosystems are global and diverse (from hobbyists and pranksters to organised criminal groups and nation‑state actors), and distribution methods evolve — historical anecdotes (floppy disks, Kazaa) explain where people used to catch infections, while DBIR/CISA‑style reporting explains how most infections start today. (verizon.com)

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Member Avatar for MartyMcFly

I put source other than above because I thought its bound to be something clever like mainstream Software Downloads / patches. That said I would of thought popups, other areas where you have to click on dodgy adds, would be the worst

I'd be interested to hear some stories as well, AV Management is a big part of my job.

Member Avatar for jwenting

The majority of virusses spread via pirated software and other crap people download over P2P networks.
Email virusses used to be big but have been on the decline for a year or more.

Direct infection through websites is low and generally not viral in nature but limited to installation of spyware or trojans that are usually not self replicating (though they may take actions to trick others into infecting themselves) and therefore don't class as virusses.

Member Avatar for server_crash

file sharing networks. I think 50% of files on kazaa are corrupt.

Member Avatar for jwenting

At one point security firms estimated 90% of files on Kazaa had malicious payload.
I believe it's gotten a bit better but noone's ever done a similar survey on bittorrent and similar networks AFAIK.

Member Avatar for JJ___

My PC used to be spyware-ridden and I only used internet explorer and a very inactive hotmail account. Coincidence? I think not. Explorer is definitely to blame.

Member Avatar for Catweazle

The majority of virusses spread via pirated software and other crap people download over P2P networks.
Email virusses used to be big but have been on the decline for a year or more.

Direct infection through websites is low and generally not viral in nature but limited to installation of spyware or trojans that are usually not self replicating (though they may take actions to trick others into infecting themselves) and therefore don't class as virusses.

You can play 'games' with voting and listening to uninformed opinion, but if you listen to this fella instead you'll get the truth! :D

Member Avatar for mmiikkee12

No, listen to me for the truth :)

Viruses may spread through P2P networks, but they originate in the computer of an evil computer hacker (see ). Then that hacker sends it to someone, who sends it to someone else.... you get the point.

commented: Love the signature, MartyMcFly +1
Member Avatar for Real-tiner

Mean people write them, of course. They aren't just spontaneously generated.

Then those people sneak them into innocent looking software and trick you into downloading the software.

Or they email you a link that downloads a virus.

Microsoft is the real culprit, by making Windows so it can run software from a remote source.

Member Avatar for jwenting

uh, the first virusses ran on Unix computers in the 1970s...

They were intentionally created and non-mallicious (except for slowing down network traffic). Their goal was to spread updates to software automatically to all users whereever they might be. Problem was they were too effective at spreading :)

The first recorded mallicious virus for DOS was created unintentionally when a university student in Jeruzalem made a programming mistake.

Member Avatar for EricaJanine

Surprised nobody said 'the Antivirus companies write them' so they have something to inoculate/whatever. :mrgreen: Not that I agree, of course. But it's that same old adage...when a crime is committed, always follow the money. You have to admit AV companies do benefit from it.

So, here's my real answer: Viruses originate from unethical punks who need a good butt whoopin'. It's not (well...maybe) Microsoft's fault a bunch of crackers wrote a bunch of junk to infect or exploit, but they sure were caught offguard, eh?

:twisted:

Member Avatar for bjdea1

Its mainly Asia, South America and Eastern Europe/Sothern Russia - in my opinion. Also the middle east. The places where living conditions are not good basically.

Member Avatar for server_crash

Its mainly Asia, South America and Eastern Europe/Sothern Russia - in my opinion. Also the middle east. The places where living conditions are not good basically.

:cheesy:


Eatern Europe is not a bad place to live. Hong Kong(Asia) is probably the best place to live right now, because you can start a business in ONE day where as here it takes months to years.

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