It used to be that the mischief an eleven year old created was the innocent type involving spitballs or firecrackers. Now that has changed. Kids are taught in schools these days not only how to work a computer, but how to code a computer. These programs are in many cases financed by large companies like Google and Microsoft. One Canadian eleven year old took this knowledge and created a computer virus designed to steal virtual currency. Many schools now have after-school clubs and strong incentives to get promising students in these programs. They are taught how to use coding languages like Visual Basic and C#. It is all they need to create a malware virus. Fortunately, there were a number of ‘schoolboy’ type mistakes made in the malware.
AVG, the antivirus company, reported that they were able to reverse-engineer the kid’s amateur code, leading them to learn his identity. Although this is a mistake that professional hackers would never make, it illustrates the ease with which a child can create a program that gets him access to someone else’s log in details.This malware, as the AVG researchers found, target gamers and many times promise free virtual currency, cheats or something a gamer would be interested in. This particular malware was disguised as a cheat program for the popular Runescape game boasting 200 million players.
Once clicked and downloaded the malware steals the log in information and sends it to the one who created the malware. Similar malware programs, designed by professional hackers steal financial information, install key logger viruses to collect each user name and password typed into the infected computer. The real nasty ones reproduce themselves and send copies of the virus to others on the user’s email contact list.
The key is that gamers should know that they are a target for these types of attacks and to resist the temptation to download cheats or anything else promising something for nothing. And always, always have an antivirus program installed and active when you are using the internet.
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