Can a Computer Virus Kill You?

When I think of the Cyber Police, I think of Agent Smith from The Matrix. But what if the Cyber Police itself became a virus due to a system failure? According to the McAfee Anti-Virus Program, 375 cybercrime attempts are made every minute. But you know that you only need to not download anything from suspicious sites and it won't concern you. But then you see a supposedly normal email.

Click on the link and gotcha!

On the night of May 4th to the 5th in the year 2000, an email was sent from the Philippines in the subject of which were the intriguing words,

I love you. Attached to the email was the following script that you see on the screen. In a few days, the virus infected more than 3 million computers in Asia, Europe, and the United States. In 2002, this program entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most dangerous computer virus of all time. According to various estimates, the losses from it amounted to $10 to $15 billion.

And now you're going to learn what a bank robbery looks like in the 21st century. These are no longer criminals with huge bags who open the safe while all the employees are lying on the floor and shaking with fear. The Petya virus blocks data and requires a ransom and Bitcoin for decryption and access to the computer. It's distributed like many other malicious programs through spam emails. For example, the first versions of Petya were disguised as resumes.

Imagine, an employee of the Human Resources Department of a large bank turns on the computer. She's received an email from a candidate who responded to a vacancy and attached a resume, an ordinary Word file. But if opened, the file downloads malware and installs it on the computer without the user noticing. So, hackers can move inside the bank's network. Even when money starts to be withdrawn from the bank account in four or five hours,

The HR manager won't remember this resume. So, such a robbery took place in banks in 60 countries. Therefore, Petya is recognized as the most dangerous virus in the world in 2019. The creators of the virus earned four Bitcoins in two days.

a little more than $10,000. 45 people made the transfers, but none of them received the key to unlock the computer. If you look at the world's statistics, according to the company Group IB, the damage from ransomware viruses in the world exceeds $1 billion a year, but something else is scarier. The development of virus programs isn't at a standstill.

and they're already capable of killing a person. It seems that Agent Smith is trying to outsmart humanity. John Zimmer, CEO of Lyft, 2016, said that humanity will completely switch to self-driving cars by 2025. Electric cars are controlled via an onboard computer and Wi-Fi network, which means they become a target for hackers. Computer security specialist, Leonard Wooters,

from Belgium demonstrated how to hack a Tesla Model X electric car using Bluetooth and special equipment worth $300, which can be easily purchased by anyone. The hacking device fits compactly in a backpack. The only thing that a hacker needs to get is the special ID number of the car. However, this also isn't a problem, since you can read it through the car windshield. The whole procedure takes about 90 seconds.

After that, the hijacker has a special radio code for unlocking the Tesla, which can be quickly installed on a special keychain for keyless access to the car. It's a small matter. Assemble a portable control system from a microcomputer and an engine control unit that you can buy at any used parts store for Tesla. The hijacker only needs to get within about 16 feet of the car to activate the keychain, send their software to it, and gain full control.

Would you like your car to be driven by a schoolboy, pressing buttons on a gaming joystick, like in a computer game? I wouldn't. The first car I drove was back in primary school, in the game GTA. I crushed pedestrians and crashed into all the poles. And now imagine if this young idiot was given the control of a real car, yours. But the worst thing happens when the unlimited possibilities of hacking are added to the capabilities.

of artificial intelligence. In 2018, IBM released the program Deep Locker, created to recognize hacker threats. Inside it is Sona Computer Virus, the wanna-cry cryptographer. This technology opens up limitless possibilities for espionage. Encrypted for a video conferencing application, the program uses a neural network for facial recognition.

During a video call, DeepLocker scans the faces of the participants, recognizes the right person with the help of artificial intelligence, and merges an infection in the form of WannaCry into this person's computer. However, such a system has much scarier uses. For example, a drone can be equipped with a facial recognition system and weapons.

Thus, you could easily eliminate political opponents or simply undesirables by pressing a remote control button. However, the tools of artificial intelligence are already being used in full force and as a tool for targeted propaganda. We all remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal after the US presidential election.

The company is accused of using the personal data of 87 million Facebook users to influence the outcome of the presidential election in the United States in 2016. But most of the iceberg is simply hidden from the public. Recently, the American technology company Nvidia shared the results of a network trained to generate fake images based on the GAN algorithm.

The neural network creates images of the faces of non-existent people in seconds. It's based on an endless collection of images of real faces and can add any ethnic features and emotions. With each new update of the site, a new face of a non-existent person appears. These are not bots, as you might think.

but carefully recreated personas based on hundreds of thousands of photos of real users of social networks. Such technology opens up wide opportunities for political propaganda or the creation of fake news. For example...

Any internet user can distribute a created video or image with a fictitious event to provoke aggression and riots. According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, future wars will start with cyber attacks. According to the company Norton Life Clock, Chinese cybercriminals have been attacking US satellites and US defense enterprises for several years.

The researchers note that the source of this malicious campaign is located in China and is sponsored at the state level. And this isn't the only example of such an attack. U.S. and Israeli intelligence services have developed a worm program to counter the Iranian nuclear program. On June 17, 2010, a virus that distorted data on uranium enrichment

managed to destroy the infrastructure of the Boucher nuclear power plant. It's easy to imagine viruses that will replace ads in augmented reality glasses or hack neural interfaces. Humanity is now closely connected to the virtual world through Wi-Fi, smart home systems, and video surveillance cameras. Therefore,

There's nothing fictional about the assumption that malicious programs can purposefully kill people, interfere with the results of elections, arrange accidents, or even provoke wars. Humanity is a virus, says Agent Smith. Isn't it time we cured it?