The Purpose And Goal Of A Malware Artist
In the early days, malware originated quite innocently from programming code written for a good intention. However, gradually this code was misused with darker intentions. Earlier, most malware were viruses and were written as a prank and also for programmers to show off their programming skills.
From an exercise ruled over by the pride and ego of a programmer, malware has now turned into a tool to make big money.
Malware artists now concentrate on capturing passwords through key loggers. Spywares are used to collect personal and confidential information like credit card numbers, email addresses and private web surfing habits. The information got in such a way is then misused for monetary gains like fraudulent credit card usage or blackmail.
Malware artists also use their “art” to create adware – which is done in a sly manner. Free software such as file sharing applications contain this kind of adware and once the free software gets activated, adware collects relevant information about the user which is then used in targeted advertisement campains.
Then there is “scareware” which is used to pop up to frighten a caught-of-guard user into believing that a virus threat has been found on his system. This then leads the user to click on link for a “solution” which further contains more adware and spyware.