It is an extraordinary auction – and probably the most expensive virus catapult in the world. The artwork called “The Persistence of Chaos” is a laptop infected with a wide variety of malware that has now been auctioned off for more than a million USD.

Virus slingshot comes under the hammer – viruses as art!

Virus protection programs, awareness training and other protection mechanisms such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems are all designed to help prevent malware from being captured. But this is not the case with the laptop that has now come under the hammer.

The “work of art” bears the appropriate name “The Persistence of Chaos” and is completely unusable. The Samsung NC10 netbook has long been infected by encryption Trojans. But productive use is no longer the issue. But this is nothing new with art. But you can have a look at the spectacle.

There are six malware programs on display. The auction sum is naturally high with over one million USD for such a laptop. But the damage caused by the installed malware is even higher. Together, these have caused damage of USD 95 billion worldwide. And these are the pests:

• • BlackEnergy
    was responsible, among other things, for the power outage in Ukraine in 2015. But not exclusively. In general, this malware was used more frequently against Ukraine
  • DarkTequila
    you don’t necessarily know it here in the country. The main target of the malware is Mexican users. Financial and company data

are interesting for the malware.

• ILOVEYOU
  is already a dinosaur under the malware. Since the year 2000, the software has been spreading via e-mail and writing “ILOVEYOU” in the subject line. Worldwide more than 500,000 networks have been disabled as a result
• MyDoom
  could be described as a precursor of Emotet. Email contacts have been written to, attachments have been sent. A damage in the amount of 38 billion USD goes alone on the account of this Malware
• SoBig
  has a similar dissemination strategy: e-mails. This malware even damaged hardware and secured its place on the artificial laptop. SoBig is responsible for 37 billion USD in damage, which is a credit to the name. And last but not least:
• WannaCry
  most people might still be familiar with. Even if the damage “only” amounts to four billion USD – in the news it has made it into the malware. The Encryption Trojan has attacked 200,000 computers in 150 countries.

Why and who takes the trouble to create a virus slingshot?

The work of art is intended to make the danger posed by malware tangible. For this reason, the artist duo “Guo O Dong” has registered the appropriate domain “The Persistence of Chaos“. There, thanks to a webcam, anyone can watch what happens on the laptop.

That, as already written, is not too much. A blocking tape symbolically protects other computers and networks from infection. It goes without saying that the computer is not connected anywhere. If you want to call such a virus slingshot your own, you have to infect your laptop yourself. The laptop was successfully auctioned for 1,345,000 USD.