Memz Trojan

Pros

• Provides a fascinating look into how computer viruses work
• Two dozen payloads that you can test out yourself

Cons

• Despite its generally safe nature, it should only be use with care and caution

It's normally not recommended that you download openly malicious programs to your computer, but Memz is the exception, even though it's designed only to be used maliciously. Most viruses found in the natural world can't be traced to human interference. They're dangerous but not amoral, creatures just simply trying to survive. Computer viruses are a horse of a different color. Designed by humans, they're explicitly built for nefarious ends. But many have taken to creating viruses to test their skills or learn how to more effectively combat malware attacks. Memz is one such case, and it's managed to gain some level of notoriety even outside of hacker communities. This version of Memz is a harmless variation of a truly dangerous virus, and it's both a fascinating look at how viruses work in practice and a window into the rampant and bizarre culture of memes that exists beneath the surface of the internet.

Whether you're an aspiring virus analyst or someone simply curious about what this virus looks like, there's a lot going on here. Despite being created as a joke parodying the culture of young, aggressive hackers, this trojan is exceedingly complicated, and it represents some of the biggest threats viruses pose to modern machines. Twenty-five different payloads are activated when Memz infects your machine, but this version renders you control over how and when they activate. That gives you the opportunity to examine and experiment with these payloads without putting your machine directly at risk. You can think of it as a virus simulator.

The sheer scale of what Memz can do is staggering. In malicious versions, the first active action it takes is multiplying, creating duplicates that seize control of your machine and protect themselves. From there, it most often starts by opening random websites and running web searches in Google. To truly demonstrate the scale of what it can accomplish, Memz can also open a variety of different applications at random. But that's just the start. Over time, Memz begins to take control over the user's mouse, first through small jerks but gradually in more complex and aggressive maneuvers, essentially operating as a ghost inside your machine. These activities are largely random in the malicious version but can be triggered actively by users in this harmless version of the virus. Other payloads include the ability to reverse text and invert colors, take screenshots of the entire monitor, and flood the screen with error messages.

In the clean version of Memz, all the payloads you want to test out are handled through a dialogue box, and the factors that could cause serious harm to your machine are stripped from it. But the creator still recommends that you test the clean version on a virtual machine before giving it a spin on your home computer.

Pros

• Provides a fascinating look into how computer viruses work
• Two dozen payloads that you can test out yourself

Cons

• Despite its generally safe nature, it should only be use with care and caution