3 ms·

I wonder if there are botnet/rootkits circulating that use such compact programming.

• userbinator 5y ago
  Vintage computer viruses are definitely in this category of size optimisation. Not so much "modern" malware.
  • jazzyjackson 5y ago
    I’m ignorant to such optimizations—-is the idea just to be small enough that your presence isn’t noticed stuffed into a exe/pdf file or are there other reasons a virus designer would want to create such small executables?
    • userbinator 5y ago
      Yes, that's correct. Being able to infect without increasing the length of infected files is an important point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_cave
    • jandrese 5y ago
      Some had to fit in a 512 byte bootsector. Size optimization was always a concern when dealing with floppy disks.