A new website, BadwareBusters.org, wants to be the destination site for the average computer owner who has questions about viruses and spyware.

The site launched in beta last week and was created by StopBadware.org, a non-profit housed at Harvard University.

ConsumerReports WebWatch, a non-profit that investigates the credibility of websites, will help moderate the site. WebWatch is the Internet integrity division of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Maxim Weinstein, manager of StopBadware.org, explained the genesis of the site in an interview with The Industry Standard.

"There are a variety of sites out there where people can ask very technical questions," Weinstein said. "But there isn't much that is accessible to someone who is not technical."

Other Internet security sites like CastleCops have proved successful at attracting a technically savvy target audience, Weinstein said. Both the language on CastleCops' site and the site's design is intimidating for non-techies, he added.

BadwareBusters will largely be a "by the community, for the community" site, but experts from StopBadware, ConsumerReports WebWatch, and other organizations such as Google will participate.

BadwareBusters.org has already generated some conversations about specific pieces of malware, including this one:

becharist:

HDTVxvid.net — BAD SITE!!!

Do not download the codec pack provided, it is a new form of Virtumonde that brings in all sorts of baddies (trojans, Smitfraud-C, etc…)

Baz:

Quite big at 6.7MB too…

I have sent it off to a couple of vendors for adding to virus databases.

becharist:

Could you show me where to do that? I was looking for somewhere to send it and just found forums that probably wouldn’t appreciate virus attachments :) Thanks.
~J

Baz:

You may find that you need to send them a link to the file in question as it is too big for most email service attachments.

Adaware: Send to mailto:research[AT]lavasoft.com

Avast: virus{AT}asw.cz

Avira: Instructions at http://analysis.avira.com/samples/index.php or send to virus[AT]avira.com...

For the moment, StopBadware.org is promoting BadwareBusters within the tech community to generate traffic, but that will change.

"We want ordinary people to be able to turn to this and say, 'that's where I can ask a question and get an answer,'" Weinstein said.

BadWareBusters will officially launch early next year. Several companies, including Google, VeriSign and PayPal fund StopBadware.org's programs and operations.