Do Girls Write Viruses/Anti-virus Software?
By: Robert Palmer | Posted: 17th April 2009
It seems that all the famous virus makers are male. Why aren't there many girl virus makers?
Although virus writing is certainly a male dominated sport, there are some females involved in this also. One such notorious girl, known by the handle Gigabyte made an a worm that targeted the Microsoft .Net framework. The worm is known as Sharpei and was the first worm to use C#. Gigabyte is from Belgium. She was only 17 when she made the worm back in 2002. She later created six more viruses that she posted on her website. She described writing viruses as an art form. She was arrested in 2004 and charged with computer crime. Her website was shut down, though archived versions can still be found on the web, however ensure your antivirus protection is turned on during your search.
Interestingly, none of the viruses Gigabyte produced made it into the wild. She was driven by factors other than wanting to do harm. Perhaps this is what sets boy and girl virus writers apart. Most male virus writers intend harm from the outset.
As far as well known girl virus writers that is about it. There have been psychological studies carried out on the personality of hackers, and the conclusions suggest that they do not all fall into the typical stereotype of the alienated young male. For the most part they are very intelligent and fascinated by new ideas and challenges. They also have the ability to retain large amounts of information and are often driven by curiosity rather than malice.
Hackers are often motivated by doing the right thing and perceive that such pursuits as denial of service attacks on corporations such as Microsoft are socially desirable. They believe that these corporations are fundamentally corrupt, and believe that they themselves are waging war on these corrupt organisations.
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Tags: doing the right thing, art form, outset, computer crime, ordinary people, proactive, denial of service, denial of service attacks, psychological studies, malice, antivirus protection, microsoft net framework