What motivates people to create computer viruses?

[punyshow587]

I would say all of the above, creating havoc, gaining noterity, a programming school project, stealing personal information, and increasing webtraffic for pay per clicks. The internet is still in its infancy. its only going to get worse

A nice little article
[edit] Activities
The RBN has been described as "the baddest of the bad". It offers web hosting services and internet access to all kinds of criminal and immoral activities, with individual activies earning up to $150m in one year. Businesses that take active stands against such attacks are sometimes targetted by denial of service attacks originating in the RBN network.[2] RBN sells its services to these operations for $600 per month.[1]

The business is difficult to trace. It is not a registered company, and its domains are registered to anonymous addresses. Its owners are known only by nicknames. It does not advertise, and trades only in untraceable electronic transactions.[2]

There is one increasingly known activity of the RBN which is an exploit delivery method by applying fake anti-spyware and anti-malware for the purpose of PC hijacking and personal identity (ID) theft.[1] According to McAfee’s Site_Advisor MalwareAlarm is dangerous fake anti-spyware software and it is an update version of Malware Wiper. They tested 279 “bad” downloads from this one site.[2] The methodology is to entice the user to use a “free download” to test for spyware or malware on their PC, MalwareAlarm then displays a warning message of problems on the PC, this is to persuade the unwary web site visitor to purchase the paid version. Another two examples are SpyDawn and Spylocked, the three fake PC security tools or rogue software mentioned here and numerous others are linked to and hosted by the RBN.[3]

According to Spamhaus RBN is “Among the world's worst spammer, child-pornography, malware, phishing and cybercrime hosting networks. Provides "bulletproof hosting", but is probably involved in the crime too”.[4] RBN was the subject of an article in the Washington Post on October 13, 2007, where Symantec and other security firms claim RBN provides hosting for many illegal activities, including identity theft and phishing. The article quotes a spokesman for Kaspersky Labs that the owners of RBN might not have directly violated the law as they primarily provide hosting services; their customers are apparently the ones violating laws. In Switzerland there is a legitimate ISP called RBNetwork which has nothing to do with RBN.