Interview with Gigabyte

Now the world's getting its 50000th virus variant, we thought it would be the right moment to talk to Gigabyte, Belgium's most famous virus writer.

People who write viruses usually have their reasons. It's generally known that most virus writers are youngsters between 14 and 25 years old. These people have a lot of know-how because they often follow a course dedicated to computer science. Other virus writers are troublemakers who want to annoy others. They're the electronic equivalent of threatening calls, vandal crimes, etc. Others do it as a revenge.

Note: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act forbids the sending of a computer virus or other damaging code to other people's computer. The secret service observes this.

How did you end up in this scene?

I was already using computers when I was quite young, I started with BASIC on a Commodore 64 when I was 6 - 7. I have always found viruses interesting little programs, maybe even when I was 6, but never bothered looking for more information on them, that only happened a few years ago. After a while all the antivirus information became so boring and I still didn't know how viruses actually worked, how they were written, etc. And it were always the 'poor end users' who were considered the victims. Most of those infected people shouldn't even connect to the Internet, as they ignore warnings and are still so stupid to open any file. They're just asking to get infected. And then they moan because they have a virus, and it's the virus coders who get blamed.

No, I wanted to have a look at it from the other side. I wanted to start collecting viruses, because it was different, instructive and in the movie 'The Net' someone collected viruses too.

Then, via a friend from a newsgroup about hacking, I came in contact with one of his friends, who occupied with viruses and went to virus newsgroups and IRC channels. Via that person I came in contact with what we call the 'VX scene' (virus coders, virus collectors..). Then I figured out all virus coders kind of know each other.. that was kinda fun, but I had to get used to it in the beginning. You see viruses written by friends get into the news and even websites going down (because of the Melissa virus). It's a little strange in the beginning. After a while I got bored with collecting and writing viruses just sounded fun.

Why do you write viruses?

Actually it's a form of art, just like many other hobbies. Also, it's a fun way to practice programming. Further, see the answer to question 1.

Are you a white raven in Belgium?

In the VX scene, yeah, because I'm female, 16 years old, and as far as I'm aware of, the only one in Flemish speaking Belgium. But in real life.. I try to make my life a little interesting, I don't always do what others do, but you can't call me an exception.

Which malware can we expect in the future?

Buffy16, aka Buffy.c: New version of Buffy (Buffy.b was the only actually spreading version, on certain IRC-servers, Buffy.a probably wasn't), MBR, better protection of the script so it can't get removed via the remote control (not that it matters a lot, as everything will be put back after a reboot), maybe e-mail spreading (but there's a big chance that this would make the worm too big), the script will also bother some antivirus people and there are some other little surprises..

Further (in general, also other VXers) I think you can expect more Internet-related viruses like Babylonia. And viruses that try to infect as many file types as possible.

How many viruses did you write and in which language are they written?

In total, 7:

- Gum.a and Gum.b: VBS/HTML
- Entice: VBS (Visual Basic Script)
- Stress Out: VBS
- Sahara: VB
- Buffy.a: C
- Buffy2k: C++

When your PC is infected with one of your viruses, will you immediately notice that?

No, if you use a lot of VBS files and you have one of my VBS viruses, you'll probably notice that soon, if you hardly use VBS files, you won't. Sahara you'll notice pretty fast because it infects files your Windows directory. With Buffy you'll notice some funny things on IRC, and after rebooting you'll notice, for sure.

Why do you write viruses that spread mainly via IRC?

People appear to be so stupid to accept files from others and execute them, so IRC worms still work pretty well (the ignore option in the newer versions spoiled it a little though), en you can do fun things with mIRC script, like a line for remote control so it's also a bit like a backdoor, making the users react on certain things... mIRC script isn't only used to make the worm send itself to others.

What do you think about antivirus companies in general?

That some of them get paid for doing nothing. Many of them can't even analyse the viruses correctly. Irok for example.. almost no AV site gives a correct description, some of them (McAfee) even claim it formats the hard disk. Which is completly ridiculous.

But well, in the meanwhile we have something to laugh with. Further there are a few AVers I (and a few other VXers) kind of get along with, like Sarah Gordon.

Where does the name Buffy come from? Which variants can we expect?

The name? From 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' of course. Buffy16 will probably be the last one. The 16 stands for my 16th birthday. I'm working on this together with Evul. (for more info see question 4)