Virus Collecting Magazine

Making easier the backup process by VirusBuster In all the years I have been collecting I saw many collectors fucked because something wrong happened to their collections and they did not have a recent backup or even just a backup. Why so many collectors don't make backups regulary if actually anyone has a CD or even a DVD burner? Lazyness! What does produce the lazyness to backup the virus collection? In most cases the way the collection is stored. Most collectors have their collections unpacked this means that making a backup is a pain in the ass and takes more CDs or DVDs than being packed. What are the beneffits of having the coll...

Same file, different virus names by VirusBuster Some times you make a request and after receiving it you discover that not all the stuff you requested is there. Why? After discarding a mistake of the other trader we must be sure that both traders used the same antivirus definition databases. What can be wrong if both traders used same databases? This article pretends to answer this question. Some antivirus, as F-Prot or Nod32, identify with different virus names the same file depending of its extension. The antivirus even can miss (not detect at all) a virus depending of the extension of the file. It happens that also depending of the fil...

KAV based collections: mistake by VirusBuster Some collectors only use KAV to collect. This is a bad mistake if you pretend to consider yourself a real virus collector. KAV is the most used antivirus among collectors to trade and collect for several reasons: often updates, many unique detections, etc., but KAV is not enough. The main reason for this is because KAV may detect different viruses, trojans, backdoors, ..., with the same name, so other antivirus is required to difference them. Actually most collectors use at least two or three antivirus, which is good but not enough. Most popular alternatives for KAV are RAV and NOD. RAV may di...

Safe environments for virus management and replication by VirusBuster Have you been collecting viruses for some time? Then I bet you infected yourself at least one time. A silly mistake like double clicking or pressing ENTER key while you are managing your collection from Windows Explorer for example. If you are lucky enough you run accidentally a silly virus or worm. If you are not this mistake could lead to data corruption or even to total HD deletion. Maybe you want to run a virus on purpose to check if it replicates or just to see how it works, but you are afraid of this because you could infect your whole system. In this article I wi...

Antivirus with detected virus lists by VirusBuster Creating a list of detected viruses is used to know what you miss from an antivirus. There was a time when not so many detections were being added to antivirus definition databases. That time was not so long ago and then if you wanted to "improve" your virus collection you could create a list of missed samples for e.g. AVP and try to search and find some of them. Actually this is a lost art which is performed rarely, just for special situations like a new breaking worm. Anyway I consider VCM would not be complete without explaining how to get antivirus detection lists. First I must say th...

Raiders of the lost ark-ive by VirusBuster What is the mistery about the ark-ive? What does it contain? The secret is now unveiled... the ark-ive has a virus trading etiquette. Once upon a time in a cyberland, far, far away... well, not so far away it was in #virus EFnet, a group of virus collectors used to meet at IRC to exchange viruses. They (Poltergst, ShadSeek, Galar, omega666, jtr, Daniele Fogazzi, ..) initiated what we know nowadays as virus trading and they were the first "virus collectors" as we understand that term today. In that time, around 1993-1994, the main antivirus used to exchange was F-Prot. Dr. Solomon was also popular...

Last words?? by VirusBuster No, I am not dying. :-P I just consider this will be the last issue of Virus Collecting Magazine so I just say bye to readers. :-) I also want to apologize for being late with this issue that should have been published some months ago. As 29A editor I was busy so I did not have much time to work on my own magazine. I could have worked on it anyway, but I prefered to spend more time with it for two reasons: it will be last one and because I consider third issue of VCM was a bit short and missed some quality. Why is this the last issue? Well, first I must say "never say never" but considering that nobody is colla...

001.- Last words?? (VirusBuster) 002.- Raiders of the lost ark-ive (VirusBuster) 003.- Antivirus with detected virus lists (VirusBuster) 004.- Safe environments for virus management and replication (VirusBuster) 005.- KAV based collections: mistake (VirusBuster) 006.- Same file, different virus names (VirusBuster) 007.- Making easier the backup process (VirusBuster)

Interview to Brian_Perl by VirusBuster - How old are you? Where do you come from? 27, South Korea - Why did you start collecting viruses? Most of people think that collecting viruses is one of many hobbies like collecting stamps. But I have collected viruses, Because I have the purpose to reaseach viruses and know how to protect a system from their attack. - For how long have you been collecting viruses? I think, I have collected viruses since 2001. maybe 4 years. - Did you ever stop trading viruses and continued after a time? If yes, for how long were you inactive?, why did you stop?, why did you decide to continue? yes, for a month, mos...

Interview to Bigblok by VirusBuster - How old are you? Where do you come from? 19 y/o from Italy - Why did you start collecting viruses? When my computer was infected for the first time I discovered 3 viruses on my pc so I thought that on the web there were a lot of them. In this way I started my collection. - For how long have you been collecting viruses? Since 2001. - Did you ever stop trading viruses and continued after a time? If yes, for how long were you inactive?, why did you stop?, why did you decide to continue? Yes, sometimes I stopped to trade. I was inactive for few months and I think to will be inactive again in the futur...