Storm Worm Rising

The Storm worm has been an increasing problem in the last few months, but a change in tactics may mean something big is going to happen. The article discusses a bit of back story about the worm, including the somewhat frightening numbers about the millions of spam emails carrying the worm payload. They estimate between a quarter and a million infected systems usable for spam or DDOS attacks.

Comments

How are these numbers calculated?

[IndieKid]

They estimate between a quarter and a million infected systems usable for spam or DDOS attacks. 0.25 to 1,000,000 is a pretty large range.

Seriously though, how does one go about estimating these numbers? Is it something as simple as an estimate of what proportion of infected e-mails are expected to result in an infected desktop? I doubt that would give a very accurate figure.

Re:How are these numbers calculated?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Seriously though, how does one go about estimating these numbers?

• 1. Roll 2D6
• 2. Take the number rolled, and multiply it times the number of worm messages that have arrived in your inbox.
• 3. If your computer is actually infected, square the result.
• 4. Play a game of Solitare
• 5. Add your final score to the result
• 6. Divide the result by your Boss's vigilance.
• 7. Make a saving throw against discovery, and multiply the result by 1000
• 8. Round up to the nearest 100,000
• 9. Publish
• 10. Profit!

Lower bounds are trickier as they will require you to actually care about what you're doing.

that is why

[clubhi]

That is why I always do my online banking BEFORE I browse for porn

Re:Removal Tool

[ben0207]

No fukcing way am I going anywhere near a site called Team Furry.

The goggle really might do nothing.