No one likes to get computer viruses, malware, spyware or anything of the like on their computer. Well, maybe that is not quite true. A laptop that has been intentionally infected with six of the most notorious strains of malware is being auctioned off. And people were making bids to buy it. Why? Because it is being labeled as a work of art. Move over Picasso!
An 11 year old Samsung laptop called the Persistence of Chaos was intentionally loaded with six of the most notorious strains of malware (WannaCry, ILoveYou, MyDoom, SoBig, DarkTequila and Black Energy) by Chinese artist Guo O Dong and cybersecurity company Deep Instinct.
The Malware/Art
ILoveYou was first released in 2000 and infected 50,000,000 computers worldwide including computers at some of the most secure locations in the world. Computers were infected through an email with the subject line ILOVEYOU which contained an infected attachment that unwitting victims opened. Two Philipino men were identified as being behind it but due to no law prohibiting this in the Philippines they were never charged.
SoBig was discovered in 2003 spreading via email and at its peak one out of seventeen emails worldwide was infected. It was both a worm and a trojan and spread via email with an infected text file that when opened sent emails to everyone in the user’s address book. The creator has never been identified.
MyDoom spread in 2004 disguised as a Windows error message and remains the fastest spreading Internet worm in history. It has been active as recently as 2009. Its creator has never been identified.
BlackEngergy emerged in 2007 as a HTTP toolkit. It allowed an attacker to execute a DDoS attack and is able to attack multiple IP addresses at one time. Later versions were able to execute files and download them. It is most famous for being used to take down Ukraine’s power grid in 2016. It has been attributed to a Russian cybergang.
DarkTequila is a keylogger used to steal sensitive information like financial info and login credentials. It emerged in 2013 targeting victims in Mexico and Latin America while silently sitting on the victim’s computer. The perpetrator has never been caught but is believed to be based in Latin America.
WannaCry was a ransomware that appeared in 2017 that used an exploit developed by the NSA. It spread quickly and was most famous for targeting the UK’s National Health Service. It is believed that North Korean state actors were behind this attack.
All told these 6 have caused over $95 billion in damage worldwide.
How Is This Art?
Once the laptop is sold its Internet connectivity will be disabled. It is already isolated from the rest of the Internet to prevent any of these threats from spreading (despite all of these being patched since) and its USB ports have been disabled. The laptop is being sold as a piece of art because that is the only way that it is legally allowed to be sold in the US as it is illegal to sell malware in the US. It is thought that it will offer the excitement as the purchaser will be able to see the malware in its native environment, like seeing animals in the wild.
Security experts are having a bit of a laugh. There is of course no need to pay millions of dollars for this kind of art, all you need to do is take your computer online with no security and you can have the same thing for much less of a cost. But someone was willing to pay $1.35 million.
So is an infected computer art? Most people would say no but it seems at least one person says it is. Could this be more valuable than a Rembrandt or a Monet or even AI? Time will tell…