Highly privileged malware

Usually when the media talks about malware, the damage has already been done, with thousands of machines already infected.

Recently, though, discussions of malware have focussed on a program which doesn’t even exist – the German goverment’s Trojan, which I blogged about back in December. Whether or not the road to hell is paved with good intentions depends on your point of view. But there’s certainly a lot of discussion as to what effect government sanctioned malware will have on network security.

Since I last blogged, things have have moved on a bit. The German government has confirmed a 200,000 Euro budget for project costs and two developers. On Monday, the Federal Court of Justice handed down a ruling that an electronic search of premises would be illegal against current legislation. A lot of politicians, including the Minister of the Interior, are now campaigning for a change in the law demanding that this law should be changed so that the Trojan can finally be created.

If this happens, it will be the first time that the law has been changed in favour of malware.