Why do people make computer viruses?

i'd do it to have a sense of power. there was a virus awhile ago where the guy made people pay him $300 to get the virus off. you needed a password to get rid of it, and it was highly encrypted, so only a few people were able to get rid of it without sending him money.

Why do people make computer viruses?antivirus downloads

Unlike biological viruses, computer viruses do not simply evolve by themselves. Computer viruses cannot come into existence spontaneously, nor can they be created by bugs in regular programs. They are deliberately created by programmers, or by people who use virus creation software. It is possible that copying errors and recombination may lead to the actual evolution of a computer virus; however, the possibility of this type of 'digital evolution' is extremely remote.

Virus writers can have various reasons for creating and spreading malware. Viruses have been written as research projects, pranks, vandalism, to attack the products of specific companies, to distribute political messages, and financial gain from identity theft, spyware, and cryptoviral extortion. Some virus writers consider their creations to be works of art, and see virus writing as a creative hobby. Additionally, many virus writers oppose deliberately destructive payload routines.

Some viruses were intended as ''good viruses''. They spread improvements to the programs they infect, or delete other viruses. These viruses are, however, quite rare, still consume system resources, may accidentally damage systems they infect, and, on occasion, have become infected and acted as vectors for malicious viruses. A poorly-written ''good virus'' can also inadvertently become a virus in and of itself (for example, such a 'good virus' may misidentify its target file and delete an innocent system file by mistake). Moreover, they normally operate without asking for permission of the owner of the computer. Since self-replicating code causes many complications, it is questionable if a well-intentioned virus can ever solve a problem in a way which is superior to a regular program that does not replicate itself.