Inside Conficker
Get the full story and inside scoop on the conficker virus, how it was created, deployed, and ultimately defeated... and whether or not it was just all misdirection. This is a great article.
The Inside Story of the Conficker Worm
A HOTEL bar in Arlington, Virginia, 23 October 2008.
A group of computer security experts has spent the day holed up with
law enforcement agencies. It is an annual event that attracts the best
in the business, but one the participants like to keep low-key - and
under the radar of the cybercriminals they are discussing.
That
evening, conversation over drinks turned to a security update Microsoft
had just released. Its timing was suspicious: updates usually came once
a month, and the next was not due for two weeks. "I remember thinking I
should take a look at this," recalls Paul Ferguson, a researcher at Trend Micro, a web security company in Cupertino, California.
He
did. So did the rest of the computer security industry. In fact, they
talked, puzzled and worried about little else for months after. The
update heralded the birth of the Conficker worm - one of the most
sophisticated pieces of malignant software ever seen.
Despite an unprecedented collaboration
against them, Conficker's accomplished creators have been able to bluff
and dodge to gain control of machines inside homes, universities,
government offices and the armed forces of at least three nations,
establishing a powerful and lucrative network of "zombie" computers. New Scientist has pieced together the sobering details of that cat-and-mouse fight.
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