Do companies ever use computer viruses or trojan horses to stop hackers or to track them down?

This topic came up during a computer security discussion. I have never heard of a company using active countermeasures against hackers. The idea is interesting, but I am not sure of the legality. Has anyone heard of this being done?

Do companies ever use computer viruses or trojan horses to stop hackers or to track them down?spyware remove

I don't think the results would be admissible as evidence in court. However, hackers often expose each other both to show off their skills and of course for the lulz.

Legitimate companies don't use illegal measures to track down hackers, but they may have friends who do!

Only script kiddies run programs they downloaded outside of a virtual machine, and it's almost impossible to find someone who is behind 7 proxies. How do you hack someone who is anonymous?

Covert government agencies probably use nasty tools to collect information, but when done lawfully they need a court order to plant trojans etc.

Do companies ever use computer viruses or trojan horses to stop hackers or to track them down?virus protection

There are always rumours about virus scanning companies linked to the crackers to write them. However this is unlikely. In modern law enforcement it is absolutely not permissable for someone to rape a rapists sister to bring the rapist in. In the same way it is very illegal for a virus company to write a virus and hence fight fire with fire. When police agencies try and track down the virus writer I am told the simplist thing to do is to use a tracer to try and get their IP adress. However this has its flaws, especially if the virus is being distributed through other people's machines and hence more complicated methods have to be used. I agree the idea is very interesting but the way viruses and trojans are distributed now would mean a) there would almost certainly be collateral damage and b) I assure you it is illegal. Hope that helps and sorry about my prose style.