Who's Getting Rich on Computer Viruses?

Computer viruses cost businesses and consumers around the world billions of dollars each year. So who -- if anyone -- is profiting from viruses? And if no one is profiting, what is the motivation behind virus creation? The answers are not completely clear. "Almost all viruses are written for the same reason that people put graffiti on walls," said David Perry, global director of education at Trend Micro . "It's simply a desire to claw their initials into the middle of your hard drive."

Yet, recent events have uncovered what may be a new trend: spammers paying virus writers to create worms that plant an open proxy, which the spammer then can use to forward spam automatically. Many suspect this occurred with the SoBig virus.

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