Why do I share malware?
Why not... as fascinated by malware ever since long time ago, when I was a young child. There are many different ways the samples can kill a system! It's always fun to see programs misuse the rule set given to them,
destroying the machine in the process. Many children enjoy toy cars, however I enjoyed malware samples back in my day. I have no doubt I'm not the only one who started messing around with dangerous software so early, including
young kids at this point in time.
Since I have already grown up, I know the main painful struggle of a little malware collector. It is to find the samples to play with. You see, the most fun types of malware are slowly fading away. Obviously, "fun"
in my view. Who knows, maybe you enjoy repetitive flashy GDI malware or textbook ransomware that releases once per week. You're free to like what you like, or what is common at the moment.
The samples disappearing isn't the only problem, though. Many malware collectors have a big ego and/or don't want to help out anyone in an impossible search for the dream sample. Simply think about that, it's just
a single click for them to send you out a sample they already have, but a laborous (thank god if a possible) task for you to find a specific unpopular sample from 15 years ago. Being a kid, you don't have experience or
tools to conduct an efficient search. I've been one myself, and the only reason I managed to get so many samples back in my day was because of kind people that freely shared the samples online. God bless them.
So, if that didn't answer the initial question, that's the reason I'm sharing malware. Sharing is caring. I managed to find all the necessary tools, earned influence, so it's time to pay back to the community around
me! All the samples I have are free for all to test and have fun running over and over again. The best you can do to thank me is to subscribe to my channel and continue on sharing the samples with those who need it most.
Don't be egoistical, it's not going to pay back!
Sadly, a good chunk of people don't appreciate that and attempt to take the website down due to "illicit software spreading".
To them I grant a special permission to run live samples on their host machine.
In conclusion, I want to thank all the people that helped me and other people with building malware collections. All the KernelMode (R. I. P.),
MalwareUp II (R. I. P.) and MalwareUp III (R. I. P.) members for sharing free samples,
rogueamp (R. I. P.) and danooct1 for showcasing malware,
Alin Tecsan for showing interest to this day and cracking rogues, and, most importanly, my friends who sent me requested samples at any given time. Especially
Fedor22.
As the project grows, it's becoming more difficult to handle - but what next?
Let's start from the very beginning. I had 100 subscribers back in 2016. Making videos, editing them and at the end uploading didn't feel like a routine at all! Dang, I even could not edit them at all, no one would care. Then,
I began to gain traction, more and more people would subscribe because they liked the best-edited video on my channel.
Suddenly, once I hit 1K, it was apparent to me that quality of my videos had to rise to appease the viewers. I could still post off-topic videos and get away with that, but I felt like it was rude. At last, people
didn't subscribe for this kind of stuff! As the amount of 0s in my subscriber count started to increase, I knew I had to go for even better editing and post-production quality, and content in general. I couldn't post anything
else apart from what my channel was known for anymore, as it would result in notification spam for my recurring viewers, which would affect the "trust factor" of my loyal subscribers.
You see, there's a sentence that a wise man, Voltaire, said: "With great power comes great responsibility" - you heard it a billion times, but that's what I actually experienced in person. I can't continue to upload
the same type of videos as my channel grows, I have to experiment with new things to interest my viewership and myself to start. And as the numbers grow, it's becoming gradually harder to upload new things without being
criticized or even miserably flopping. This is why I try to keep uploading a wide variety of content.
If I ever hit a 7-digit number, first of all, I will scream, but then I'll have no idea how to proceed. I assume I will continue to run my channel solo, just as it started. But one thing for sure: my mindset of
making videos for the sake of it will not change, although by the point that happens I'll probably be in my thirties.
Malware is art! Don't let it become a filthy criminal's tool!
MalwareWatch is one of my projects aimed towards raising awareness and expanding the knowledge about peculiar, archaic and forgotten malware types to most people. I offer a broad arrangement of helpful software designed to
mitigate possible risk of users getting their computers infected, identify and localize potential threats, debug and reverse malicious samples and generally let people learn specific aspects of cybersecurity.
The website also contains a wide selection of software designed to customize Microsoft Windows and its components. Finally, MalwareWatch includes a malware sample collection as subjects for testing inside sandboxes,
VMs and other controlled environments. The links in our repository might lead to external resources that had been safety-checked before publication.
Please understand, that misusing and spreading malware for your personal gain is prohibited by the law. We are not responsible for any damage our samples might have caused to your computer.
