Your best friend, Francisco Totti, spends all his free time writing computer programs that interact with the Windows operating system. He recently informed you that during the mid year break he had written malware that randomly erases files and displays weird messages the day before New Year Celebration Day (December 31) at exactly 1.00p.m. He plans to distribute the Trojan horse, called 'Happy New Year Malaysia', via an attachment to an email message. Also included with the e-mail message is a hidden program that sends the same e-mail message to all the e-mail addresses in the user's address list. The email message with the attachment will be sent as spam the day after finals in October, so that it will have ample time to be distributed to millions of computers worldwide before December 31. You know that a large software company offers a hefty reward of RM 250, 000 for turning in unscrupulous programmers.
Questions:
1. Discuss if you think it is right to inform on a friend when no profit is involved in the crime. (You may include the point of description of computer security risks and the types of cybercrime perpetrators)
2. Critically evaluate in your discussion what action would you take?
3. Who would you notify (i.e., Francisco Totti's parents, the dean of students, the police or the software company offering the reward) if you choose to turn him in
4. Give your suggestions on how can users safeguard against these various internet and networks attacks