Any modern user of a personal computer at least once in his life has come across so-called viruses - programs that harm the owner of information. Viruses are the source of many technical failures and problems, and they have spawned an entire industry in IT - antivirus software. These are well-known facts, it is much more difficult to answer the question: why are computer viruses created?
The point is that people writing viruses can have different motivations. However, all the motives of virus creators can be divided into two large groups: commercial and non-commercial.
Non-commercial motives for creating viruses
It is believed that schoolchildren and students are mainly involved in the creation of viruses on a non-commercial basis. They do it for the sake of self-affirmation, pranks and "hooliganism". However, this stereotype is not relevant: modern information security technologies are so complex that inexperienced programmers simply find themselves too tough.
Many viruses are created by professional programmers who consider themselves "researchers". Some of these virus writers even have their own "ideology" declaring the writing of viruses - unofficial magazines, manifestos, and so on are issued.
Commercial motives for creating viruses
However, the most common motivation for creating malware is to make a profit. There are many schemes for making illegal money using viruses, for example:
1. Organization of remote management of system resources. In this case, the malicious program can transmit large amounts of data through the user's computer, for example, to organize so-called DDoS attacks, create a chain of proxy servers, send spam, and even earn money in the Bitcoin system.
2. Theft of confidential data. Personal information received by a virus from a user's computer can be sold on the black market or used in other illegal income schemes. Theft of accounts of various payment systems is especially dangerous.
3. Direct extortion of funds from the user. This type of malicious software includes so-called ransomware, including widespread Winlockers that block the operation of the operating system and require money to be transferred to cybercriminals to restore the computer's performance.
There are other schemes for making money illegally using viruses. Along with advances in information technology, cybercrime also develops. For example, trading in “virtual property” from massively multiplayer online games has led to accounts in these games being stolen as well.
