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A patron donated $ 1.3 million (about Rs. 9 million) for the technological equivalent of a dormant landmine: a 2008 Samsung notebook containing some of the world's most destructive malware .
"Persistence of Chaos" as the work is known, was created by Chinese Internet artist Guo O Dong and commissioned by Deep Instinct, a New York-based cyber security company. The company provided the malicious software and collaborated with Guo to prevent the type of concrete damage that the project was supposed to highlight.
"We have this fantasy that computer events can not affect us, but absurd," Guo told The Verge. "Armed viruses that affect power grids or public infrastructure can cause direct harm."
The viruses presented have names that could be confused with pop songs, but collectively they caused more than $ 95 billion in economic damage. The "Wanna Cry" ransomware attack of May 2017 was one of the most important; it had touched more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries and had devastated the national health service in Britain and the Renault plants in France. "BlackEnergy" caused power outages in Ukraine in December 2015. The oldest malware, "I Love You", was an attachment to an email posing as a love letter infecting dozens millions of PCs on the Windows operating system.
"These softwares seem so abstract, almost false with their amusing and spooky names, but I think they point out that the Web and IRL [in real life] are not different spaces," Guo told The Journal. Verge.
Guo and Deep Instinct have stated that they have taken steps to ensure that the malware is not dangerous. The laptop is isolated, which means that it is not directly connected to the internet and can not transmit viruses to other networks. Its Internet features will be disabled before being sent to the successful bidder.
Malware includes viruses, worms, spyware, ransomware and any other malicious code designed to extract personal information or to inflict damage. In November, Marriott International revealed a data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 500,000 customers, making it one of the largest violations of history. And earlier this month, a cyber-attack using a leaked tool from the National Security Agency wreaked havoc in Baltimore.
Guo made the headlines for the first time with his art in 2017, with a performance staging the artist in a Segway while walking a hipster on a leash in the streets of Brooklyn
© The Washington Post 2019
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