Conficker’s D-Day: not much happening
The Conficker worm today has begun to phone home for instructions but has done little else. Conficker was programmed to today begin actively visiting 500 out of 50,000 randomly generated web addresses to receive new instructions on how to behave. Conficker has begun to do this, according to security company F-Secure, but so far no doomsday scenarios have emerged. Among security experts, the consensus seems to be that very little will happen today. This may be in part because of the high amount of publicity Conficker has received, but then again April 1 is not the first time Conficker has been programmed to change the way it operates. Similar trigger dates have already passed with little change, including January 1, according to according to Phil Porras, a program director with SRI International. Security experts at Symantec, the maker of Norton Antivirus, also believe the threat is overblown and says Conficker today will “start taking more steps to protect itself” and “use a communications system that is more difficult for security researchers to interrupt.”
Technology companies and experts across the globe have been working together to halt the spread of Conficker, disrupt its communications and uncover who created the worm. Microsoft has even issued a $250,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Conficker’s authors. Despite the security sector’s best efforts, very little is known about the origins of Conficker or its purpose. Nevertheless, some breakthroughs have been achieved. On March 30, Security experts with the Honeynet Project discovered a flaw in Conficker that makes it much easier to detect infection. IBM researcher Mark Yayson also believes he has discovered a way to “detect and interrupt the program’s activities,” according to The New York Times. Since the Conficker worm was discovered in October 2008, the malware has only received programming updates from its author and worked to infect other computers. Conficker is believed to have infected 10 million computers worldwide mostly in Asia, Europe and South America. According to IBM, only 6 percent of North American computers have been infected.
Source: PC World
Comments(17)
What happened to April Fools jokes only lasting till midday??
Especially ones that are just irritating
I hate this right justification thing!!
"What happened to April Fools jokes only lasting till midday??
Especially ones that are just irritating"
This has been covered on all news stations.
Its april fools, dont care what you say.
Some wannabe skynet terminator thing, and just because alot of companies/news sites is in on it, doesnt make it less april fools.
I never watch the news…
And if you kids believe this kind of news.. you are americans. Pure americans.. dumb as always.
'Only' 6% of north american computers have been infected. Lol. How stupid are Americans with computers?
Who would gain from this Conficker??? Well, all it seems to do is generate more anti-virus software sales…
Hmmmm…
Has anybode ever thought that this whole conficker thing might be a big april's fools prank?:D
Nothing has happened and nothing is gonna happen, so…
day it's not over
Just a way for the antivirus companys to make money. Probly Obama made this up t stimulate the economy with people buying more stuff like antivirus software.
You are all so dumb. If it was meant to be a government prank, EVERY COMPUTER WOULD TURN UP POSITIVE. Not to mention, this runs way outside the U.S. . Conficker is real, I just don't personally thing we have much to worry about. Do your research, I've been reading about this since last november.
Just update your computers, if you can't, have someone get your a conficker removal tool (there are like 10). It's easy.
wait till tommorow….G20 …. Well i think it will be tomoz
Yea us Americans are so stupid which would be the reason we are the greatest country in the world. Not one country in the entire world could ever realistically stand a chance against us
Must suck to not be American.
"Must suck to not be American"
^The most laughed at country in the world.
Go take your brick for a walk
@13
USA is not, Norway is. USA is only 15th on IDH classification.
"Just a way for the antivirus companys to make money. Probly Obama made this up t stimulate the economy with people buying more stuff like antivirus software." wow, you got it all figured out huh?
Only 6% of US computers? that there alone is over 5 million, does that mean the majority of those that got caught are in the US, but they wanted it sound like the US didn't get effected by it?