Administrators of Internet relay chat networks believe they might be able to eradicate the Fizzer virus, but the methods may run them afoul of cybercrime laws, said a legal expert Friday. Several postings on an IRC-Security list debated the merits of trying to shut the computer virus down, and one operator, QuakeNet security team member Daniel Ferguson, warned that manipulating the worm could be illegal. Despite that, he believes that several IRC operators will likely attempt to shut down the computer viruses running on PCs connected to their networks.
"You can"t really blame them," Ferguson said. "When there is nothing else (they) can do to solve a problem like this, then they are left with little choice. The worms (and) trojans not only use their bandwidth, costing them money, but are a danger to the general IRC and Internet infrastructure."
Since Monday, Fizzer has been causing problems for IRC networks. The virus, which spreads mostly through e-mail but also through file-sharing service Kazaa, connects to a random chat network and awaits commands. The virus activity caused headaches for the operators of several smaller IRC networks, which typically haven"t had to deal with such so-called IRC bots.