Virus hunters track hackers' dark craft

Ground zero in the war on viruses, worms and other cyberbugs is a dim, windowless office on the first floor of an anonymous gray stone office building in a business district of this Washington suburb.

Here in Symantec's security operations center, software engineers and virus hunters search for new variations of old worms or freshly minted viruses that have been crafted to exploit some vulnerability built into commonly used computer software.

Only a few years ago, when the Internet was new, tracking hackers was much simpler; many virus writers were just nuisance teenagers experimenting with software code picked up from Internet message boards and hacking discussion groups.

But hacking today is a far darker craft and has turned the Internet into a hall of mirrors where a constant strategic game is played - with the virus writer striving to hide traces of his activities from the virus hunter.