The Birth and Battle of Conficker

NewScientist has an interesting look back at the birth of the Conficker worm and how this sophisticated monster quickly grew to such power and infamy. "Since that flurry of activity in early April, all has been uneasily quiet on the Conficker front. In some senses, that marks a victory for the criminals. The zombie network is now established and being used for its intended purpose: to make money. Through its peer-to-peer capabilities, the worm can be updated on the infected network at any time. It is not an unprecedented situation. There are several other large networks of machines infected with malicious software. Conficker has simply joined the list. The security community will continue to fight them, but as long as the worm remains embedded in any computer there can be no quick fixes."

Comments

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what you are trying to say is this

The security community will continue to fight them, but as long as Windows remains embedded in computers there can be no quick fixes.

But its hard to tell... care to elaborate?

If we look carefully at these Windows worms...

[symbolset]

If only we consider more thoroughly what single thing they all have in common, we might be able to find a cure.

Re:"Watch me" service

[RoFLKOPTr]

Guess the trick is to find a way to make them want to disinfect their computers.

"Every time you don't update your antivirus, a kitten is struck by lightning."

Re:"Watch me" service

[alienunknown]

Ahhh that brings back memories....

Re:Correction

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

i'm suprised i have to make this point yet again, but there are more machines infected than the whole linux marketshare. until linux is really in the hands of the common newb you won't have an apples and apples comparison.

I know. It's typical isn't it? I've been waiting for a Linux version of Conficker for some months now. That's why I still have to dual boot: I just can't get the same experience using Linux as with Windows.

And before you suggest it, I'm not about to take the trouble to manually downoad and install some other academically written virus as a substitute. Also, typically, deficiencies in WINE stop me from running the Windows virus.

I know there is the whole marketshare thing, but I think there's just more the developers could be doing on a variety of fronts to address what is really a critical problem with Linux.