Gizza job, plead virus writers

Three new MyDoom variants have been found in the wild that contain not only malicious code but a plea for a job.

MyDoom U, V and W attempt to download a Trojan called Surila onto users' computers, which would allow hackers to take remote control and use the PC for spamming or distributed denial of service attacks.

And embedded in the virus code is the text: 'We searching 4 work in AV industry.'

But Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security company Sophos, said in a statement that this was the last way to land such a position.

"It's very simple: if you write a virus, we will never ever employ you," he said.

"Not only is it unethical to write malicious code, but it raises issues as to whether you could ever be trusted to develop the software which protects millions of users around the world from attack every day."

Antivirus developers have to ensure that their software works reliably, detecting over 90,000 viruses on a wide variety of operating systems and network configurations without causing problems, explained Cluley.

"Virus writers don't care if their code crashes or causes incompatibilities. You don't have to be a genius to write a virus," he said.

Antivirus companies also maintain that the skill sets involved in writing a virus and blocking one are very different.

Many antivirus companies perform background checks on employees working on such sensitive technology.

The latest MyDoom variants spread via email and require the user to click on an attachment to start the malicious code.

Infected emails come with a variety of basic social engineering techniques, including identifying the attachment as a virus report.

See also:

Teenager charged over Sasser worm

Sven Jaschan faces five years in jail if convicted  10 Sep 2004

Fallout from virus war persists

Netsky, Bagle and Mydoom variants still topping the virus charts  02 Sep 2004

New Mydoom virus is not a pretty picture

Latest variant poses as collection of humorous photos  17 Aug 2004

Huge increase in virus-infected spam

Virus writers cash in with latest breed of email threat  17 Aug 2004

Security

The latest wave of cyber-crimes and acts of vandalism have demonstrated once again that many systems are still vulnerable to attack.  15 Apr 2004

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