operating system tags: for malware known to work on specific OSs
virus: program that self replicates. does not have to be malware but almost always is
email worm: malware that spreads via email and social engineering
trojan: malware that deliberately tricks the user into downloading or running it thinking it's something else
ransomware: malware that holds user data for ransom, usually large sums of real world money
adware: malware that serves the user ads, usually invasive
spyware: malware that collects user data and sends it off
artware: malware made as an art piece or joke. creators intentions have to be known to count. i actually call this "designer malware" but artware is better as a tag
scareware: malware that only scares the user for no apparent reason refuses to elaborate leaves etc
boot infector: malware that infects the boot sector
formatter: malware that formats a drive, almost always C:
backdoor: malware that lets another user have access to the machine. can let an outside user remotely control the machine with ease
demonstration: safe versions of malware made to demo their payloads without risking damage to a machine
news: news...
joke: funnyposts about malware i like and make me.smile
missing/unclear info: malware we don't have all of the important details straight on
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watching a handful of malware youtube videos has got me thinking abt how there are soo many different ways to Do Malware. im curious, do you have a favorite style/genre of malware? or even just a favorite area for malware to "be good at?" like destructiveness, or aesthetics, or sneakiness, or ease of spreadability, or whatever else?
this is a great question. i'm a particularly big fan of highly destructive malware, so the more damage a piece of malware can do to a machine the better. however, if they do it too fast, it's not as fun to see, so i also like the ones that pace themselves a little as they destroy the machine.
that said, i do also love visual payloads, as do most people. there's something just so fun and fascinating and cool about malware that seeks to alert you that you've been infected (after it's too late, of course) in creative and sometimes funny ways. i'm of course a big fan of DOS malware for this reason, since there were so many creative ones both in visuals and how they affected your machine. (and also because said visuals were usually very appealing to the eye)
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blaster was a computer worm that spread on windows xp and windows 2000 computers in 2003. it was programmed to start a SYN flood against port 80 of the windows update service, creating a DDoS attack against the site itself. the buffer overload from the virus causes windows to crash and then automatically reboot. four versions have been found “in the wild.”
a little while ago @neuro-typical sent me this post by @bye2k of a popup that appeared when trying to right-click images on a shadow the hedgehog fan forum, known as Wishes are Eternal (after the SA2 line). this version of the site appears to be an archived snapshot on the wayback machine, and I'm happy to confirm that it is indeed real. though i couldn't get the popup to work in my own browser, the javascript does exist in the source code of the site, so it's very real and very cool.
i had a lot of things to say about this, but i didn't want to blast the notes of the OG post into oblivion with my big funny wall of text, so I've made my own post. below the readmore I'll explain javascript popups on the internet, some malware that has utilized this, and some very interesting sonic fan community history.
first of all: what is this? how did the webmaster manage to create a popup window in your computer to stop you from downloading images?
well, that would be javascript. because JS is just a normal script language that can do whatever you want, creating a popup is no exception. now, whoever ran the site did not write this script themself, this much is evident by the credit you can see in the source code for the site.
this script is offered by a site called dynamicdrive.com, specifically for disabling right-clicks. you see how simple this is? javascript makes it possible to bother users in all sorts of creative ways. plenty of malware on the web utilizes javascript, and you're probably already aware of most good examples.
you're most likely familiar with offiz, better known by the colloquial name "You Are An Idiot". though its status as malware is somewhat debated, most people can agree that the sites it was on abused a javascript function that allowed it to create hundreds upon hundreds of bouncing windows, slowing the user computer to a crawl and forcing the user to restart their machine, meaning any unsaved work they had open was now lost. in that way it was destructive, though indirectly.
offiz is an example of javascript malware that is harmless on its own, but not all JS malware is that friendly. javascript can be used to force your machine to download software, steal user data, serve you all manner of popups, employ many kinds of malicious code through xss, and more. although these cases are rarer than they were, say, a decade ago, that doesn't mean they don't still happen. here is a fascinating little instance of javascript being used maliciously very recently. it's hard to suggest ways to avoid these without just telling you to use common sense, but there's no other way to put it. as is the case with all malware, your best bet when it comes to not getting it is thinking before you click.
browser malware is extremely common. you may have encountered it going to a suspicious website. there is certainly a necessary aspect of social engineering to this type of malware, you have to be paying less attention to where you're going and what you're doing to stumble upon a site so unsecured that it could infect you. users who get themselves into these situations are typically looking for either p_rn or pirated stuff, so they're more likely to act in irrational or desperate ways to get to their content. don't be a fool online and you won't get played for one.
so, why? why does this old, obscure sonic fan forum have javascript that prevents you from right clicking images? prevents you from downloading images?
this forum is very, very old. the last posts on the entire site were about 10 years ago, even to this day. it's no surprise to me that a lot of this site is a relic of its time. the photobucket watermark on the header image, the collecton of midis of shadow themes playable on the site, the use of the term "ripped off" (as opposed to ripped) to describe the action of taking sprites from a game. it's all there on the very first page, the only one in this archive. despite what youtube video slideshows with a single text scroll that says "no copyright intended, pictures found on google" may imply, reposting images was indeed taken seriously at this time. this was a time when it wasn't too uncommon to see a credit to the person who made an anime girl image transparent (a render, for those unaware) in a forum signature. this was a time when someone got caught tracing every 5 days.
that's not to say there were no issues, but people were still very defensive over what they deemed to be theirs. this was especially prevalent in fanart. fan works are hard and are always a labor of love, so it's no surprise nobody wanted their work reposted, especially not without credit. this was especially clear when looking into some parts of the sprite ripping community. making spritesheets was much harder then than it is now, and it was especially impressive if sprites were hand-edited or even made from scratch. this incredibly painstaking work combined with sonic fans reputation for... unwavering passion... could often culminate in a very serious attitude towards doing something as simple as saving an image. in fact, for some people, this mindset has never truly left.
in 2014, fangame creator Leemena Dan published Sonic Gather Battle on SAGE (the Sonic Amateur Games Expo) to mostly positive reception but ultimately little attention outside of sonic fans online. that is, until 2017, when after a seemingly inconspicuous update, players discovered what appeared to be an audaciously malicious form of DRM present in the game.
this malware had everything. all the bells and whistles. when a player would do any number of things from opening software made to decompile games to simply typing "sonic gather battle cheat" into their internet browser search bar, the payload would activate. (which, of course, means it tracks your keystrokes!)
it's difficult to find good footage of both layers of this DRM (or, rather, both payloads of this malware) that doesn't include a facecam of some gamer dude gawking and screaming at his computer screen. even so, I've found two decent ones. layer 1, and layer 2. this DRM also sends your IP address to a privately owned server, presumably so that the DRM would activate even when the game is uninstalled, and when trying to play it, a splash screen would show telling you to abide by the rules.
unsurprisingly, people did not consider this a proportionate way to respond to the threat of people ripping the sprites from a fangame, and the creator has since been banned from SAGE. to this very day, some people are simply so protective of their work that they'd be willing to go to any length to prevent you from saving it. as obnoxious as that can sometimes seem, it does make for some very interesting history.
hi i dont know much about malware except for this one youtube channel i follow... tell me about some fun facts or about malware you find particularly cool or like anything
hmmm well
some of the earliest self replicating programs were not malicious, though they did raise questions about the idea of if putting software on a users computer without their permission was okay even if the program caused no harm. (imagine that...) Animal was a good example of this, it was a 20 questions game that asked the user to think of an animal, and it would then guess which one it was. think of it like an early Akinator. the program would self replicate and spread, but did no harm, it was literally just a game
my personal favorite malware are often DOS malware, as is the case for many enthusiasts i see. while most malware these days is concerned primarily with making as much money as possible (ransomware, spyware, and adware being the big 3), most DOS malware seemed to be created with the sole intention of either scaring people or destroying people's stuff, which i admire. it wanted nothing out of you, it just wanted to screw you over. DOS malware was also often very pretty, visually speaking
most people think of the most dangerous malware as having wild and elaborate payloads with lots of visuals, that's how it's portrayed in fiction after all. but in reality the most dangerous malware is usually very covert, and always viral. the thing about computer viruses is that they're a lot like organic viruses, the kind animals get, in many ways. the most dangerous ones aren't dangerous because they do the most damage to machines they infect, though that is to be considered, the most dangerous ones are the ones that spread to a lot of machines very quickly, and in order to do this effectively, many have to be stealthy. just like organic viruses, they don't last long if they're caught and neutralized early, before they can become widespread
malware can infect theoretically anything, so long as it's got a compatible OS. this is why you'll sometimes see infected ATMs, arcade machines, store displays, cameras, etc
most antiviruses don't actually do you much good unless you're REALLY bad at keeping yourself off of shady sites and avoiding suspicious downloads. if you've got working common sense, it's unlikely you as a consumer will need an antivirus. your computer also probably already came with one. they really only have consistent results with businesses, which are usually the big targets anyways
some malware spreads via exploits in other types of software, like a parasite might. (though i believe "parasitic malware" refers to viruses that infect files on the machine) spysheriff (which is one of the best/nastiest malware of all time) did this with goggle.com way back when with .wmf files. when i learned how this worked i literally squealed and giggled and and skipped around my room gleefully
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i actually avoid reblogging warning posts about malware because i don't want to warn anybody. you should get that virus, you should get it and then show me but definitely download it now. look at my payload boy
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