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The initiative, as
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"It really depends on the demographic," said Carey Nachenberg, chief architect for security firm Symantec. "It will make the typical virus writers--13- to 25-year-olds--think twice about releasing viruses."
Virus writers who intend to release bugs will have to be a lot more careful about who they associate with on the Internet, said Peter Allor, director of vulnerability research for network protection provider Internet Security Systems.
"You have a fair chance of someone turning their buddy in," he said. Virus writers "are going to be very careful about who their alliances are with and who they work with."
Others believe the reward won't have a practical effect, aside from marginally increasing the distrust in an already paranoid community.
"Nothing will change," said Roberto Preatoni, founder of security site
The litmus test for the new initiative will be whether the $250,000 bounties produce additional suspects in the MSBlast and Sobig virus investigations, which have seemingly stalled.
MSBlast, also known as Blaster and Lovsan,
The U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and Microsoft earlier announced
The main measure of the new initiative's success will be whether fewer major attacks are seen, Symantec's Nachenberg said.
"This bounty is really meant to deter people from releasing malicious code into the wild, not necessarily writing malicious code," he said.
