Cyber Punks

Having been in IT for many years and being responsible for the entire network infrastructure of a financial firm, I have dealt with and seen all types of viruses and malware infections. They are a real pain in the ass to deal with and sadly they are getting more sophisticated each day. The most recent one I have encountered presents itself as a computer repair program "scanning" user's PC and producing a list of "problems" it can fix. What the user doesn't know is that the program first creates those problems. Nice, ha? It also hides all files on the hard drive and disables many of the administrative tools so getting the PC back to normal is rather difficult.
All of that just to force someone to purchase a bogus repair program and steal his/her credit card info in the process. Stealing credit card info is so 1999.
Those who write malware, spyware and viruses should be hung by their balls and beaten like a blind mule. I perceive them to be cyber terrorists and as such should be dealt with swiftly and with prejudice.