Sober Code Cracked

An anonymous reader writes "The algorithm used by the Sober worm to 'communicate' with its author has been cracked. According to F-Secure, it can now calculate the exact URLs the worm would check on a particular day. Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, explained that the virus author has not used a constant URL because authorities would easily be able to block it. From the article: "Sober has been using an algorithm to create pseudorandom URLs which will change based on dates. Ninety nine percent of the URLs simply don't exist...however, the virus author can precalculate the URL for any date, and when he wants to run something on all the infected machines, he just registers the right URL, uploads his program and BANG! It's run globally on hundreds of thousands of machines," Hyppönen said. Sober is expected to launch itself again on January 5, 2006."

Comments

What if it's not "AN" author?

[core plexus]

With foil hat firmly on, I think what if it's not an author, but something more insidious?

Call me paranoid, and this may just be a press release to drive traffic to a company, but I see the day coming when small packages pack a big punch.

I'm actually a bit suprised it hasn't happened yet.

Caption This

Re:Hard to admit, but that is quite clever

[sydb]

Quit whining and use the &ltb&gt Preview button &lt/&gt you damned newbie.

Re:Hard to admit, but that is quite clever

[mslinux]

How do you get into it? I can hack-up code with the best of them. And, I'd like to be paid a lot too. I'm not willing to do anything illegal (hack into vulnerable Windows PCs), but I am willing to send out emails and to devise methods to get more messages into more inboxes (spam filters are so dumb)... where do I apply for a job such as this and how much does it pay?