Leader: Virus writers undone by need for publicity

Another virus writer has been arrested - this time in Belgium, and while we're loathe to publicise the individual any further, the question of publicity is an interesting one.

A long running - and very public spat - appears finally to have come to an end after a virus writer going by the name of Gigabyte was arrested and charged with computer data sabotage. Gigabyte's motivation has always appeared to be the mother of all grudges which she holds against anti-virus expert Graham Cluley.

A series of Cluley-themed viruses have been launched and every time another attack took place the two would lock horns for another round of public mudslinging and silicon.com would be there to cover the spat.

Believe it or not, despite the fact we knew such stories would be 'big hitters' in terms of numbers of readers, we often wrestled with our conscience (yes we do have one) when it came to reporting these attacks - aware that in some respects we were fuelling the very thing that was driving them in the first place - namely the desire for publicity on the part of Gigabyte and her desire to find the biggest stage from which to abuse the man she called 'Clueless'.

Over the years we've often endured criticism for writing about virus writers - which as far as we see is an occupational hazard when running an IT news service - and giving them the oxygen of publicity.

This we accept is unfortunate but ironically it is often the need for publicity which eventually brings the virus writer out into the open and enables the authorities to capture them.

Carole Theriault, a security analyst at Sophos, today told silicon.com: "It is normally incredibly difficult to track down virus writers but when they start coming out and boasting about what they are doing they can often help us to find out where they are."

And it's not uncommon.

A number of virus writers over the years have eventually been undone by their need to boast of their actions. Simply creating the havoc isn't enough - they then want to lay claim to crimes which have caused well-publicised chaos.

The more their antics are covered in the press, on television and on virus writer community bulletin boards the more their pride tells them to 'fess up and accept the back-handed accolades and the genuine praise of their peers.

Don't get us wrong, we would never claim 'it was silicon wot won it' - but we do defend allegations of 'publicising' by pointing out that the old adage is wrong and there is such a thing as bad publicity - especially if you're a too-proud virus writer.