A new virus aims specifically at blind users!
A very nasty virus appeared recently. Well this is not unusual. Hundreds of viruses are created each year. But this one has a particularity: it targets specifically blind users, by breaking their screen readers, isn’t it nice? This virus comes has a fake crack of Jaws 9. When launched, it will install a trojan targeting Jaws and all the other screen readers, so nothing will work!
Blind users are vulnerable to any other virus, as anyone. But this one is worse than anything since it attacks directly the only way they have to do anything on the computer! When the screen reader is broken, there is nothing they can do with the computer, and especially nothing they can do to fix it, except ask for help. In addition it seems that this one is particularly difficult to get rid of.
The fact that it comes as a fake crack for jaws asks question. Is it a way of punishing the bad guys who want to crack a protected software? Then the punishment seems way unbalanced. Or is it simply that it looks the most efficient way to spread it out?
We often wonder what’s happening in the mind of guys designing viruses. Some of them show vanity (« I am so good that I’ll write a virus difficult to get rid off »), some show jalousy (« As can’t do anything good in my life, I’ll destroy your data »), some show stupidity, etc. But I miss words to qualify the mind of the author of this one… I guess he (I can’t imagine it’s a she…) is puncturing wheelchairs tyres in his spare time.
Reference: Blind computer users struck by a very unusual Trojan attack
Well, this is not unusual; according to some anti-virus companies, the trojan is very similar to an attack that goes back in time to 2004, though this one is even nastier. As a Jaws user, I am inclined to think that if professionals want to protest against software piracy, it is not the way to express their protest.
On the other hand, it seems to me that if it’s only coming from someone looking for social recognition and not achieving his goal, then tampering with software is not the good way to obtaining any recognition at all. I’d like to add that thetrojan also aims narrator, the basic accessibility tool provided by Microsoft to vocalise the Windows OS. May VirusGuy ??? be employed to do the contrary someday!