The first virus taking advantage of Microsoft's new development language, C#, has been developed by a female virus writer.
Although not reported in the wild, the virus is an interesting proof of concept as it takes advantage of Microsoft's .Net platform. Gigabyte, the virus writer who wrote the code, says that she developed the Sharp virus as a protest against sexism in the male-dominated anti-virus industry. She singled out Sophos' senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley, in her statement.
"It's hard to stereotype - but it does seem that the typical virus writer is a teenage boy with too much time on his hands and not enough daylight in their diet," responds Cluley. "Girls seem to find more constructive ways to spend their spare time."
"In the past, Gigabyte has branded me a sexist for saying these things, but really my comments are meant as a compliment to women. Girls are just as capable of writing and distributing viruses but are far too mature to bother... with the odd exception."
The Sharp worm arrives with the subject line "Important: Windows update" and the message "Hey, at work we are applying this update because it makes Windows over 50% faster and more secure. I thought I would forward it as you may like it." It also contains an attachment named MS02-010.EXE.
If activated, the virus forwards itself to everyone listed in the recipient's address book and creates a file named sharp.vbs, which displays a message box with the following text: "You're infected with Win32.HLLP.Sharp, written in C#, by Gigabyte/Metaphase".
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