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After 1 Year, Conficker Infects 7M Computers

alphadogg writes "The Conficker worm has passed a dubious milestone. It has now infected more than 7 million computers, security experts estimate. On Thursday, researchers at the volunteer-run Shadowserver Foundation logged computers from more than 7 million unique IP addresses, all infected by the known variants of Conficker. They have been able to keep track of Conficker infections by cracking the algorithm the worm uses to look for instructions on the Internet and placing their own 'sinkhole' servers on the Internet domains it is programmed to visit. Conficker has several ways of receiving instructions, so the bad guys have still been able to control PCs, but the sinkhole servers give researchers a good idea how many machines are infected."

14 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Ding! by Mazda6s · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gratz

  2. I'm safe! by dword · · Score: 4, Funny
    I've read that Antivirus 2009 removes conflicker, so I have installed it. Now I have to get rid of the other viruses I'm getting warnings about and for that I only need
    • Cyber Security
    • Alpha Antivirus
    • Braviax
    • Windows Police Pro
    • Antivirus Pro 2010
    • PC Antispyware 2010
    • FraudTool.MalwareProtector.d
    • Winshield2009.com
    • Green AV
    • Windows Protection Suite
    • Total Security 2009
    • Windows System Suite
    • Antivirus BEST
    • System Security
    • Personal Antivirus
    • System Security 2009
    • Malware Doctor
    • Antivirus System Pro
    • WinPC Defender
    • Anti-Virus-1
    • Spyware Guard 2008
    • System Guard 2009
    • Antivirus 2010
    • Antivirus Pro 2009
    • Antivirus 360
    • MS Antispyware 2009

    or

    • A Unix-based operating system (such as OS X or Ubuntu)
    1. Re:I'm safe! by buchner.johannes · · Score: 4, Funny

      because its ./configure script fails

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    2. Re:I'm safe! by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 2, Funny

      "checking for wine.... yes"

    3. Re:I'm safe! by cerberusss · · Score: 2, Funny

      To be honest, for most of the listed software, there was an RPM for RedHat 6.1. Unfortunately, the RPM depended on another RPM which we couldn't find.

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  3. Re:Cleaning job by linguizic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wasn't that an episode of Stargate SG-1?

    --
    Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
  4. Re:Research = do not touch. by migla · · Score: 2, Funny

    Damages schmamages. It's only money. Just get someone who hasn't got any money to front the operation and damages wont mean a thing.

    --
    Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  5. Re:Cleaning job by migla · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't know if that was an episode of SG1, but you sig does remind me of Agatha Christie.

    --
    Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  6. Conflicker? by gmuslera · · Score: 2, Funny

    Its name should be Legion by now.

  7. Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Conficker broke 7 Million Infections...
    Microsoft just released Windows 7...

    Has anyone ever seen Conficker and Windows 7 in the same room together?

  8. Re:Not really 7m at all by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

    So the people actually providing these numbers are really saying that the current number of infections is likely to be between 1,750,000 and 5,250,000.

    Thanks, I feel so much better now.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  9. Re:Cleaning job by dangitman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Probably not.
    But YOU CAN HELP:
    Just Click the the CornFlicker Eye Chart to test your machine:

    Do you think I'm some kind of patsy? I'm not getting suckered into your virus propagation scam!

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  10. Windows virus devastates complacent idiots by David+Gerard · · Score: 2, Funny

    A computer worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users blitheringly stupid enough to still think Windows is not ridiculously and unfixably insecure by design.

    Despite many years’ warnings that Microsoft regards security as a marketing problem and has only ever done the absolute minimum it can get away with, millions of users who click on any rubbish they see in the hope of pictures of female tennis stars having wardrobe malfunctions still fail to believe that taking Windows out on the Internet is like standing bent over in the street in downtown Gomorrah, naked, arse greased up and carrying a flashing neon sign saying “COME AND GET IT.”

    Microsoft cannot believe people have not applied the patch for the problem, just because they keep trying to use Windows Genuine Advantage to break legally-bought systems. “Don’t they trust us?” asked marketing marketer Steve Ballmer.

    Millions of smug Mac users and the four hundred smug Linux users pointed and laughed, having long given up trying to convince their Windows-using friends to see sense. “There’s a reason the Unix system on Mac OS X is called Darwin,” said appallingly smug Mac user Arty Phagge.

    “It can’t be stupid if everyone else runs it,” said Windows user Joe Beleaguered, who had lost all his email, business files, MP3s and porn again. “Macs cost more than Windows PCs.”

    “Yes,” said Phagge. “Yes, they do.”

    Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy frantically tried to get our attention about something or other, but we can’t say we care.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  11. A lot more than 7m by sea4ever · · Score: 2, Funny

    A good set of these computers which are infected are going to be on dial-up connections, and they might have been offline at the time, also another large set are going to be behind firewalls and what-not which are supposed to prevent whatever on earth the firewalls were originally for, so even though only 7m unique IPs connected, a lot more didn't get the chance. There are probably a lot of 'offline' conficker-infected PCs out there. :) Let's hope that it starts using itself as one large cloud-computing system and acts as a tracker to replace TPB. and *when* will it upgrade it's host computers to linux? Surely it wants to become stronger. :)