People’s Daily Online reports that the four men who created the Panda virus are telling it to the judge in court.

The virus targeted online gaming accounts:

The virus, which infects program files and flashes up an image of a panda holding three joss sticks, can also steal the account names and passwords of online game players and popular chat sites. It was listed as the worst computer virus last year by China’s leading anti-virus company Rising.

I’ve no idea how prevalent this is, but it’s a great (in a bad way, admittedly) example of the commercialization of hacking. The article references a report by Rising, a Chinese anti-virus vendor, that:

The latest computer virus report conducted by Rising company showed that a total of 133,717 new viruses affected the Chinese mainland in the first half of 2007.

As I just mentioned in my previous post, “virus” is beginning to become a misnomer for these kinds of attacks. I haven’t had a virus in years and I bet most people haven’t either. A virus can screw up your documents and may even slow your computer down. So what?

As more financial information becomes electronic, such as virtual money or online banking, hackers are less likely to waste their time with Excel macro viruses and focus on stealing your account information.

And they probably won’t be stupid enough to let you know by changing icons to cutesy, cuddly things, either.

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