Topic: Malware researcher chases worm writer offline

[Amker]

CHRIS BOYD, director of malware research at Facetime Security Labs claims to have chased the writer of some nasty malware off the Interweb.

According to News.com, a few weeks ago a malware writer penned an attack using a mod called Hood Life for the popular game Grand Theft Auto. At the end of a Youtube video itself a URL was displayed at the end to download an associated malicious file.

Boyd was fuming that punters would fall for the shoddy graphics in the video and actually download the file.

The writer had used the handle before and even posted under that name several years earlier. He had also been involved in hacking 50cent accounts. From that information Boyd worked out that the hacker was from Hartford, Connecticut.

Other postings in news groups finds out that his real name is John and is obsessed with the cartoon strip Boondocks. More searches turn up a Myspace page written by a bloke who fitted the description.

Boyd reported the kid to the cops, but they were not that interested, mostly because there were no reported victims. However, after writing about his investigation, Boyd got an email from John who said that he was quitting his interweb antics.

"I don't want to do this anymore. Somebody help me!" he wrote. John also explains how to remove the virus he created (go into Safe Mode in Windows, find C:\\Program Files\GTA Hoodlife, then click and delete the Unins000 file).

He said that when he saw his name being talked about on the Interweb he could not sleep for two days and had been crying all day. It would be nice if one of them did reform.
inquirer