Computer worm virus

SAN FRANCISCO (March 30) - The fast-moving Conficker computer worm, a scourge of the Internet that has infected at least 3 million PCs, is set to spring to life in a new way on Wednesday.
That's when many of the poisoned machines will get more aggressive about "phoning home" to the worm's creators over the Internet. When that happens, the bad guys behind the worm will be able to trigger the program to send spam, spread more infections, clog networks with traffic, or try and bring down Web sites.

Technically, this could cause havoc, from massive network outages to the creation of a cyberweapon of mass destruction that attacks government computers. But researchers who have been tracking Conficker say the date will probably come and go quietly.
More likely, these researchers say, the programming change that goes into effect April 1 is partly symbolic — an April Fools' Day tweaking of Conficker's pursuers, who for now have been able to prevent the worm from doing significant damage.

"I don't think there will be a cataclysmic network event," said Richard Wang, manager of the U.S. research division of security firm Sophos PLC. "It doesn't make sense for the guys behind Conficker to cause a major network problem, because if they're breaking parts of the Internet they can't make any money."
Previous Internet threats were designed to cause haphazard destruction. In 2003 a worm known as Slammer saturated the Internet's data pipelines with so much traffic it crippled corporate and government systems, including ATM networks and 911 centers.
Far more often now, Internet threats are designed to ring up profits. Control of infected PCs is valuable on the black market, since the machines can be rented out, from one group of bad guys to another, and act as a kind of illicit supercomputer, sending spam, scanning Web sites for security holes, or participating in network attacks.
The army of Conficker-infected machines, known as a "botnet," could be one of the greatest cybercrime tools ever assembled. Conficker's authors just need to figure out a way to reliably communicate with it.
Infected PCs need commands to come alive. They get those commands by connecting to Web sites controlled by the bad guys. Even legitimate sites can be co-opted for this purpose, if hackers break in and use the sites' servers to send out malicious commands.

Scary.



























































:joker:

These peeps need a life or make some constructive programs

This kind of stupidity is why I leave my Windows machine offline and use it just for single player gaming and the like, while using Mac and linux machines for online stuff.

I was watching 60 mins on sunday and they working about this virus and other viruses it is scary. They showed Leslie Stall how on works and it is freaky when the attach themselves to your computer. They have become genius at coming up with them that they can attack your virus protect and keep them from updating new dl.
Symantec says although they are genius at what they do they are ahead of them in areas.
Also those who make these worms come from Russia and are young teens who target the Western world for bank accounts. And the authorities over there hail them for doing this!

Just wrong!

Wargod50

some folks got too much time.

My computer seems to be fine...

but all may not be as it seems.

I have different things to worry about today, like those hot twins down the block just turned 21...

EvyMetal wrote:

I have different things to worry about today, like those hot twins down the block just turned 21...

What are you gonna do about it?

Schbopo wrote:

My computer seems to be fine...

but all may not be as it seems.

I'm thinking it was a april fools prank via the media.

Well, April 1st has come and gone, and my computer seems OK

FRABJOS MKZ 19*B.TQIAT'
HHB;AERTUZB'
BN
A
56544RITHB'AIE!!!
TRALFAZ!!

... Sh*t.