Chapter 442: Panda Burning Incense's multiple variants!

At the same time.

"Song Jimi's uncensored nudes"?

"Picture of Chen Quan's fatal accident"?

"Lee Anson's bare face before plastic surgery"?

"Lee Parkwoo and Lee Anson's late night gay meetup — high-res photos free for download"?

One by one, titles describing horrendous events began appearing all over Korean forums and websites. Some of these were even posted on websites while others were spread via email. Once the downloaded images appeared, it caused a frenzy in Korea. The moment many Koreans saw these titles, they all gasped, and clicked on them trembling with excitement. They couldn't wait for those pictures to be downloaded!

"That's fascinating!"

"There's such a thing?"

"Quick, download it before it gets taken down!"

"I'm downloading it right now!"

"Such welfare! I'm blessed!"

"Hehehehe. how can I miss out on such good stuff!"

......

In China.

Somewhere in the Internet Surveillance Bureau.

Fang Xiaoshui wondered, "Heh, what happened this time, why did they leave again?"

Meng Yi also realized, "They have withdrawn, what's going on? Something happened again?"

The hacked websites were once again restored. This was an identical situation like previously. They disappeared after a short invasion!

Zhang Er asked, "Director Dong?"

Dong Zhiqiang had a sunken expression and was just about to make a serious statement, but the moment he thought of the explanation he gave yesterday, leaving him totally embarrassed, he just coughed and did not say anything further.

Suddenly, a cyber-policewoman said, "Ah, Chen Quan died in an accident? How can it be? I was just watching the news about him yesterday?"

Another young cyber-police then shouted, "Damn, Lee Anson and Lee Parkwoo were secretly photographed in a gay encounter? Those two had something with each other? That's impossible!"

Fang Xiaoshui also saw, "Lee Anson had plastic surgery before? This is the first time I've heard about this."

An old cyber-police drew in a deep breath through his nose and said excitedly, "Song Jimi's.. uncensored nudes?"

As they had been preparing for battle with the Korean hackers, they had their Korean translation softwares opened up. Seeing such post titles left them shocked. So much shit had happened in the course of one night? They needed to see this for themselves!

No one moved.

Some did not speak, but secretly downloaded the attachments.

Then, someone was heard cursing, "F**k! It's the Panda Burning Incense!"

Someone else also cried, "Holy shit! Everyone, be careful of downloading those titled attachments! It's a virus! My computer's infected! Sis Fan! Sis Fan! We need help!"

Fan Yingyun glanced at them, "Download the kill tool!"

A youth said, "I've download it already, but it was useless. It can't kill it! The anti-virus was updated too, but there was no warning at all!"

Fang Xiaoshui was stunned, "Then it can't be the Panda Burning Incense. The virus definitions were already updated."

That youth was on the verge of tears, "Look here, it really is the Panda Burning Incense. It's exactly the same. All of the .exe files transformed into panda icons. What's going on?"

Dong Zhiqiang went over, "Let me see!"

Fan Yingyun also went over, "Huh?"

The cyber-policeman, whose computer was infected, was at a loss at whether to laugh or cry, "This '2' has no bearings of a world class hacker! He's basically scamming people! How can he use this sort of method to disguise the virus? He's has no humanity left in him!"

Fan Yingyun disconnected his LAN cable to prevent the virus from spreading within their network before she took over his computer to take a look. Thereafter, she made some changes to the system and made a frown.

Dong Zhiqiang quickly asked, "How did this happen?"

Fan Yingyun's frown turned into a smile, "This time, those Koreans are in for another headache. This is indeed the Panda Burning Incense from yesterday, but it’s a variant. A variant might occur sometimes on its own due to many possible factors or it could be modified consciously by the virus author. It looks like this '2' had it prepared. In the field of creating computer viruses, he is already at the peak of perfection!"

Fang Xiaoshui wondered, "'2' knew that those Korean hackers would attack again, so he hit them with the virus again?"

Fan Yingyun laughed, "I like this person! Right up my alley!"

Meng Yi asked the leader, "Director Dong, so what do we do now?"

Dong Zhiqiang thought about it before saying, "Go busy yourselves with your own work, but stay alert. Other matters are not in our jurisdiction, as long as we continue to defend our networks from attacks." Saying that, he also felt quite happy, "To be able to come up with trickery like this to spread a virus, we can see how difficult this '2' can be."

Fang Xiaoshui also said in a gloating manner, "'2' has the techniques of a world class hacker and he is a world class virus programmer, is talented, and even knows strategy well. No matter where you put them, this kind of a hacker is the most dangerous. Even those top anti-virus companies do not dare to provoke such people. If they do, it would only mean a lifetime of trouble for them. This time, those Koreans are really down on their luck!"

Dong Zhiqiang symbolically cautioned, "Watch what you say, Little Fang. Remember which side you are on."

"Yes, sir." Fang Xiaoshui smiled cheekily.

Zhang Ye, who was behind them, was listening to everything that they were saying. He did not react or interrupt and just smiled as he continued busying himself with his 'work'. He furiously tapped away at his keyboard doing something unknown.

......

Korea.

The Malware Protection Center issued a red alert for the third time! A new variant of the Panda Burning Incense had started spreading and could not be stopped by the kill tool! Even the updated virus definitions could not prevent an infection as the Korean Malware Protection Center scrambled to issue the warning to remind Korean citizens not to open any suspicious email attachments or download any files from unknown sources! They also announced the file name that the virus used!

But that warning had come too late!

Countless people had already been tricked!

On the Korean internet, thousands and thousands of people posted in anger!

"It's that panda again!"

"Crap! My new computer's infected again!"

"Why can't it be killed?"

"What is the Malware Protection Center doing?"

"Didn't they already find the prevention method and make a kill tool for it? Why is it not working? The virus definitions were only updated a short while ago, but the virus was able to infect our systems again?"

"The virus definitions are working fine, but that was only against the first version of Panda Burning Incense. The new variants need to be cracked again, so please wait for a while everyone. We need to trust our programmers. With experience from the previous strain, they should be able to come up with a kill tool very quickly. Even if it's a variant, it's still that same Panda Burning Incense. There should definitely be some common source code that they share. That would help to make the research into cracking it much easier! I do not believe that we can't eradicate this virus once and for all. Be patient and wait for a bit, our people will surely solve this!"

"This is so terrible!"

"It's too wicked, I thought that Song Jimi's nude photos had really been leaked!"

"How can that hacker '2' from China even be considered world class! That bastard is just a hooligan! Does he even have the dignity and ethics of a top class hacker? Big liar!"

"My computer is dead! One year's worth of work went down the drain!"

"We need to fight China till the very end! F**k! I'm not finished with them!"

"Right, we need to duke it out with them all the way!"

"When the variant's kill tool is out, I will go and scold them until they die!"

Less than an hour after having just resolved the catastrophic risk of Panda Burning Incense, the Panda had once again swept through Korea. This was something that no one expected!

......

Korea.

Malware Protection Center.

In a certain research department.

A person scolded, "The new variant's source code has actually changed since the original? To crack this new variant now would require us to start from scratch!"

Another person said, "We have only just found a way to crack it and updated the virus database, but he already created a new one? How can he be so fast, did he plan this in advance? Was it aimed at us? This is obviously provocation! Everyone, research the new variant with utmost urgency! We need to crack it within two hours! Then we have to update the virus database as soon as possible, otherwise it will be increasingly difficult to control the number of infected systems!"

A middle aged person said, "It's already out of control. I have news here that says the number of infected systems has already reached to 800,000!"

A woman said, "The numbers are snowballing!"

The person-in-charge said, "Stop talking and concentrate. We need to crack it fast! The deadline has already been set by management! We only have two hours! Hurry!"

800,000!

900,000!

1 million!

The number of infected systems increased exponentially!

The reason for this large number of infections was partially due to the release of the kill tool by the Korean authorities. Everyone had lowered their guard after they knew that the virus had been cracked. They thought that even if they got infected, it wouldn't matter since there was a kill tool available now. Perhaps because of this attitude, it allowed the Panda Burning Incense virus to take off and spread even faster than expected. This spread was very alarming and could no longer be controlled!

The number of infected systems were currently held back and not announced by the Korean authorities. They knew that if this number was announced, it would cause too much confusion and sensationalism, but this expedient measure could not be held back for long and the only way now was to quickly create a countermeasure for this virus, so that everything else could be brought under control. They needed to stop the spread!

However, after another ten minutes, the Korean Malware Protection Center and anti-virus companies were plunged into yet another crisis!

It was not that the Panda Burning Incense variant couldn't be cracked since they already had the experience from the original virus. Even though the source code was different, there were still similarities. They only needed a little more time before they could crack it and develop a kill tool. What really surprised them was — The second new variant of the Panda Burning Incense had appeared!

The difference between the second new variant and the previous variant was that the second variant was much more terrifying! This second variant, after being tested by the Malware Protection Center was shown to be able to prevent anti-virus softwares from updating their virus definitions. It could even block most anti-virus softwares and disable certain functionalities of the firewall!

Following that!

A third variant appeared —This time, it was a Panda Burning Incense that could corrupt document files. It was another new feature that made it not only target .exe files!

Five minutes later, the 4th variant had made its way around Korea!

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