How does one know it’s there? How would one get it off if it were found? Lastly how would the Feds know it was there if the computer owner didn’t know?
The virus causes searches to kiddie porn websites. If such a website is busted then so are its customers. The example in the article was for too high an internet charge on the guy's work computer.
Security software used to detect viruses on a computer can only identify viruses that the security software ‘knows about’. So if you are using a program like Nortons or McAfee, those programs get regular updates of virus definitions. When you run those programs, they match their collection of known virus definitions to all the files on your computer looking for a match. Virus definitions may be combinations of certain registry key entries, hidden or public files, folders etc. The virus defintion is sometimes called a ‘signature’ so detection software may look for a very subtle collection of changes to your machine. So any virus program you run is only as good as its last updated virus definitions. New viruses come out every hour and definitions have not been written for them yet. If you don’t keep your virus definitions updated (keep NOrtons’, McAffee, Panda etc. updated) then you are only checking for viruses addressed prior to the last time your machine was updated.
The feds may be using software that has a virus definition for this porn virus but the home user may either not be using software that detects viruses, not aware it needs to be updated, or is using a program that does not have a definition (what to look for) for that virus yet.
I run more than one security program on my machine and they don’t detect the same collection of bugs.