Panda's Story Comes to An End

Everyone thinks that Panda bears are cute, and I sure like 'em too, but what I really don't like is a virus that turns icons into Pandas. I'm talking about the Fujacks worm here and its story, from the beginning.

Fujacks is a worm type virus, which means it can spread itself really fast and infect a lot of files before you can say "Panda" - it will basically affect any exe file and you can't miss it. Whenever it infects a file, it will turn its icon into a Panda bear burning joss-sticks. It first appeared at the beginning of the year and it can steal data from people that use the QQ instant messaging program.

Of course, viruses don't just pop up like that - they're created! It was created by Chinese scripters, 4 guys that after writing the code for it, sold the virus on the web for $12.500. The mastermind, who was only 25 years old, had been sentenced to 4 years while his 3 accomplices got milder sentences, between one year and two and a half years.

So, to say it briefly, they created a virus, sold it, then they were caught and now they have been sentenced. The Chinese have a lot of hackers amongst them, out of which some are doing a lot of damage, but, as you can see, they manage to quickly nab them. This is just another example that crime does not pay. Li Jun, the main criminal also wrote a program that would rid any machine of the virus, and he had hoped that this would somewhat make his sentence milder, but authorities didn't care much about that and he still got 4 years jail time.

Also, considering the news I've been reading and writing as of late, I found out that hackers attacking targets abroad are less likely to get caught than the ones that actually commit crimes in their own countries.