Time to take notice: Conflicker worm

[basilio]

Crashing hard drives, unworkable computers. Just a .....ing nightmare. Certainly after having to renew 2 of my own hard drives and one from my son I have become very careful..

There is reason to to be concerned about Conflicker. Once-opon-a-time viruses may have been the preserve of hackers who just wanted to prove they could do it. The evidence now is that some pretty clever crims are setting up a base that could collect very valuable passwords. Its too late to cry when the damage is done.

 

[metric]

its back......

Conficker botnet 'could take Australia offline'

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25506428-5014239,00.html
By Andrew Ramadge, Technology Reporter
NEWS.com.au
May 19, 2009 02:25pm




Security ... the Conficker worm has infected millions of computers around the world / File
Expert warns about Conficker's power
'Could be used to take Australia offline'


THE Conficker worm has become so powerful that it could be used to take a country like Australia off the grid, a security expert says.

Kaspersky Lab chief Eugene Kaspersky said the worm, also known as Downadup or Kido, could have infected as many as 10 million computers since it began spreading late last year.

"It's a very dangerous weapon – it's an army," Mr Kaspersky said.

With so many infected computers at their disposal, the worm's creators could attack and overwhelm key servers to take an entire country off the grid.

"I am quite sure that with the help of this botnet they could switch Australia off the internet, easily," Mr Kaspersky said.

Conficker has been troubling security experts since it was first detected in November.

In March Microsoft offered a $US250,000 ($320,000) bounty for finding the criminals behind the worm, which attacks computers running Windows XP and Vista.

(Read More)

itsalaff The US Department of Homeland Security also released a tool for removing the worm amid fears that it would activate on April 1.

The anticipated April Fools' attack never happened, but last month it was reported Conficker had started sending out spam emails from infected computers.

Mr Kaspersky said the criminals behind the worm only seemed to be interested in using it to make money.

"We are lucky that the owners of Conficker are just cybercriminals and they use this network to distribute malware," rather than more nefarious uses, he said.

Along with spam email the worm had been used to distribute fake antivirus software that charged users around $20 or $30 to fix nonexistent problems, he said.

To protect themselves from infection, Windows users are advised to install the latest security patches and use up-to-date antivirus software.

Links

Conficker on Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker
Microsoft Security centre – http://www.microsoft.com/security/
Kaspersky Conficker FAQ – http://www.kaspersky.com/technews?id=203038750

 

[Timmy]

its back......

metric, for a chap that peddles a lot of conspiracy theories you have really missed this one staring you in the face.

The headline should read...

"Vendor of anti-virus software warns of dangers of virus"