“World’s Most Dangerous Laptop” Up for Auction

A laptop containing six of the most notorious malware programs in history, responsible for a combined $95 billion in damages, has been put up for auction online. The lot, titled The Persistence of Chaos, has already attracted bids exceeding $1.2 million.

The package includes a Samsung NC10-14GB laptop from 2008 running Windows XP SP3, a power cord, a restart script, and a collection of malware, which consists of:

• ILOVEYOU – A malicious program spread via email and file sharing, which infected over 500,000 systems and caused $15 billion in damages.
• MyDoom – A spam-sending computer worm, believed to have been created by Russian hackers, responsible for $38 billion in losses.
• SoBig – A trojan worm distributed through spam, capable of copying files, emailing itself, and damaging software and hardware. It affected hundreds of thousands of computers, resulting in $37 billion in damages.
• WannaCry – A ransomware worm that can also act as a backdoor. In 2017, it infected over 200,000 computers worldwide and caused $100 million in losses.
• DarkTequila – A sophisticated malware that mainly targeted users in Latin America, capable of stealing banking credentials and corporate data even without an internet connection. Victims suffered millions of dollars in losses.
• BlackEnergy 2 – A modular malware that can function as a rootkit. It was used in attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in 2015.

According to the auction description, the laptop is physically isolated from the internet and other devices. The sellers are artist Guo O Dong and cybersecurity company Deep Instinct. The item is presented as an art project, with a note stating, “The sale of malware is prohibited in the United States; the buyer must understand that this work represents a security threat.”

The auction will continue for another four days. At the time of writing, the highest bid stood at $1,200,749.