Virus writers get behind Gigabyte

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131707

By James Middleton [13-05-2002]

Sharp author gets the plaudits

The virus-writing community made something of an about-turn last week
as an increasing number of authors gave their support to female virus
writer, Gigabyte.

Previously the teenage coder had been lambasted by male members of the
community for her creation of the Sharp virus that attacks Microsoft's
.Net platform.

Eighteen-year-old high school student Gigabyte created the second
virus to affect the .Net platform in March. Although the code was only
proof of concept and not released into the open, Gigabyte managed to
attract less-than-welcome attention from some of the more sexist
members of the virus-writing community.

But Steven Sundermeier, of antivirus firm Central Command, said that
in recent weeks he had seen more virus coders praising Gigabyte.

"We have seen an increasing trend of virus authors praising and giving
their support to Gigabyte, whether in a message box or remarked in the
code," he said.

Recent examples of such commendation include the ChatIRC virus that
spreads over Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and includes the remark: "I
love viruses, I love Gigabyte!" in its code, and the Orkiz mass
mailing worm, which displays a message in Spanish proclaiming
admiration for Gigabyte.

Gigabyte's Sharp virus was the second of its kind to infect .Net
files. A writer going by the name of Benny from virus group 29A got
there first with the Donut virus in January.



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