Malware Now Including EULAs, Even Ads

5/5/2008 3:58:00 PM

We're seeing reports of malware vendors including advertising (predictably, for other malware) in their own programs. We've also heard of malware authors attempting to assert intellectual property rights for their code.

What's next, per-call support charges? Copy protection?

The advertising isn't completely new, although it's certainly just as galling as the first time. And in the end it's unsurprising and even logical.

Stranger is the equivalent of a EULA with an enforcement provision. Of course, malware authors are just as anxious as legit programmers to protect their products from copying. Symantec reported one botnet kit was being sold with an agreement stipulating that you couldn't copy it or resell it. Violate these rules and they—get ready for this—threaten to rat you out, with technical detail, to the anti-virus companies so that your network will be taken down.

Of course, merchants like this can't go to the authorities to enforce their contracts, so it's not surprising that they would act like mobsters, or at least pretend to act like mobsters. They may as well have threatened to break your knees. Of course the story says that the cat's out of the bag on this and nobody has been ratted out to Symantec yet.

Originally published on the PC Magazine security blog, Security Watch.