What if we told you that there is a laptop in the market which boasts of a price tag of ₹8 crores? You would probably consider it a joke, right? But no. There actually is.
A laptop going by the name of ‘The Persistance of Chaos’, customized by artist, Guo O Dong, currently has a bidding price of $1.2 million. Well, that can be roughly converted to ₹8.3 crores!
However, it is no ordinary laptop and has a reason behind its staggering price tag. Although it’s just a 10.2-inch Samsung NC10-14GB laptop running on Windows XP (SP3), it contains six of the world’s deadliest viruses responsible for causing financial damages worth $95 billion (₹6.6 lakh crore)!
Collectionneur tendance geek ou chercheur en #cybersécurité ? Le 'Persistance of chaos' pourrait vous intéresser 😉#malware #art #ILOVEYOU #MyDoom #SoBig #DarkTequila #BlackEnergy #Wannacry #cybersec https://t.co/bk6jK1QXHN pic.twitter.com/sgRyPS1pbB
— Sunbren (@HelloSunbren) May 23, 2019
The weight of the machine is 2.8lbs and you get a power cord and restart script along with it. The six viruses that infest the laptop are ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, SoBig, WannaCry, DarkTequila, and BlackEnergy. While ILOVEYOU, MyDoom and SoBig are viruses sent through emails and are known to have caused financial damages worth billions, WannaCry is an extremely virulent ransomware cryptoworm that is responsible for setting up backdoors on systems.
Dark Tequila is a sophisticated and evasive piece of malware that targeted users mainly in Latin America and stole bank credentials and corporate data even when the users where offline! Black Energy, on the other hand comprises of sophisticated rootkit/process-injection techniques, armed with a robust encryption, and modular architecture known as a “dropper”. It caused a large-scale blackout in Ukraine which is indicative of its power.
According to Business Today, speaking to The Verge, artist Guo O Dong said that he wanted to turn digital abstract threats more physical and hence, came up with the idea of ‘The Persistance of Chaos’.
“We have this fantasy that things that happen in computers can’t actually affect us, but this is absurd. Weaponized viruses that affect power grids or public infrastructure can cause direct harm.”
And for all you need to know, according to NDTV, the laptop has already been bought by an art patron for a whopping ₹8.3 crores!