"But Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, doesn't think it's a good idea. He says a malware cyberweapon uses resources such as disk space, memory and CPU time, which might lead to unexpected side effects."
As a security technology consultant, he has a vested interest in making sure that malware remains unchecked in the wild so he can sell his services, so of course he's going to say it's not a good idea.
Japan develops malware cyberweapon
Summary
The Japanese government has been quietly developing a cyberweapon since 2008, which reportedly is able to track, identify and disable sources of online attacks, one report stated.
Topics
The Japanese government has been quietly developing a cyberweapon since 2008, which reportedly is able to track, identify and disable sources of online attacks, according to The Daily Yomiuri.
The virus which was developed by Fujitsu for the Japanese government has the ability to trace cyberattack sources beyond the immediate source to all "springboard" computers used in the transmission of the virus "to a high degree of accuracy" for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, the report noted. It can also disable the attack and collect relevant information.
Commenting on the project, Motohiro Tsuchiya, professor at Keio University and a member of a government panel on information security policy, said Japan should increase "anti-cyberattack weapons development" by reconsidering the weapon's legal definition since other countries have launched similar projects. But Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, doesn't think it's a good idea. He says a malware cyberweapon uses resources such as disk space, memory and CPU time, which might lead to unexpected side effects.
For more on this story, read Japan develops malware cyberweapon on ZDNet Asia.
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"Yes Mr. Government Minister, our 'virus' works to 'a high degree of accuracy', which we shall prove by demonstrating it in this closed test environment because we'd never take the risk of initiating an actual DDoS against live government servers. Can we have our massive cheque now please?"
Yeah, I'm sure it works great.
Yeah, I'm sure it works great.
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