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After 1 Year, Conficker Infects 7M Computers

Posted by Soulskill on from the happy-anniversary-now-run-an-antivirus dept.

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."

7 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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?

  5. 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!
  6. 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.