Exactly who names a virus

Computer Security

People have often wondered exactly who gives viruses their names. The facts are that once a virus is identified; anti virus companies compete with each other to be the first to break the news about the newest virus and it's potential. They want to make sure that their customers heard it first from them but they can not announce something that does not have a name yet. Many companies will throw in their input as to what they think the name should be. Sometimes the virus will end up with multiple names and that can be very confusing. The problem comes in because the whole thing is so competitive.

Apparently, no one is in charge unless someone is directly put in charge from that particular company. The most important thing is to come up with a fix for the problem at hand and not to worry about giving it a name. Viruses have become so prominent that many are brought to the attention of the public but others never are so to sit around wasting time deciding on a name is ridiculous to say the least.

There are actually rules about virus naming, some things are allowed while others are not. Some have been named after pop (Code Red) and some were named by running down a list of trees. It is not allowed for a virus to be named after a person or a company and it is also avoided to name the virus part of what the virus writer intended in the malicious code. The most important thing is that each virus only has one name or it really can be confusing to everyone.

Most people who get the fancy job of naming a virus are probably having lunch with the same people who name the hurricanes. Supposedly, viruses are attempted to be named from something unique about the viruses coding or behavior. For example, when the virus mydoom was named there was coding in the program that said my domain, which was then shortened to mydoom and then because the virus was a big one, they added an extra o and named it mydoom.

Referencing the very same virus, while one company named it mydoom, which was the name that virus was come to be known for, Symantec came forward and introduced that very same virus and called it Novarg. Trend Micro came forth and called the same virus Mimail.r. So, many wonder how it was that Mydoom ended up the winner and the answer to that is the company that finds and posts information about a virus first, gets to name it. Maybe that is enough incentive to keep them on top of their game while looking for those bogus viruses.

Most people do not give a darn what the virus is called as long as it is discovered and accompanied with a way to get rid of it. Some antivirus companies also claim that even if one company is the first to find and post virus information, in the heat of the moment, as in the case of Mydoom, that company may not always be the winner.