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Computers and Technology Discussion

I cannot believe... - Page 1

I cannot believe...

Posted by: fivex
Date: 2009-05-19 19:25:53
Everyone forgot Conficker.E's spreading deactivation date(may 14).

Infact, I don't think conficker is talked about very often.

Re: I cannot believe...

Posted by: Wild MissingNo. appeared
Date: 2009-05-19 19:39:34
I stopped posting news articles about Conficker's progress, as no one is taking this seriosuly. I nearly jumped out of my skin when my PC said my Anti-Virus wasn't installed. I just read this.

Conficker botnet 'could take Australia offline'

THE Conficker worm has become so powerful that it could be used to take a country like Australia off the grid, a security expert says.

Kaspersky Lab chief Eugene Kaspersky said the worm, also known as Downadup or Kido, could have infected as many as 10 million computers since it began spreading late last year.

"It's a very dangerous weapon ? it's an army," Mr Kaspersky said.

With so many infected computers at their disposal, the worm's creators could attack and overwhelm key servers to take an entire country off the grid.

"I am quite sure that with the help of this botnet they could switch Australia off the internet, easily," Mr Kaspersky said.

Conficker has been troubling security experts since it was first detected in November.

In March Microsoft offered a $US250,000 ($320,000) bounty for finding the criminals behind the worm, which attacks computers running Windows XP and Vista.

The US Department of Homeland Security  also released a tool for removing the worm amid fears that it would activate on April 1.

The anticipated April Fools' attack never happened, but last month it was reported Conficker had started sending out spam emails from infected computers.

Mr Kaspersky said the criminals behind the worm only seemed to be interested in using it to make money.

"We are lucky that the owners of Conficker are just cybercriminals and they use this network to distribute malware," rather than more nefarious uses, he said.

Along with spam email the worm had been used to distribute fake antivirus software that charged users around $20 or $30 to fix nonexistent problems, he said.

To protect themselves from infection, Windows users are advised to install the latest security patches and use up-to-date antivirus software.