conficker

French planes grounded by Windows worm

I am not sure whom the French military is attacking these days. (I am told that relations with British tourists are much improved.)

But this morning, I happened upon peculiar information while accidentally scanning the French publication Liberation.

Apparently, in the past two weeks, some French fighter planes were grounded because the military had failed to take sufficient action (even though Microsoft had sent advance warning) to prevent the spread of a Windows-transmitted virus that some call Conficker, and the Liberation journalist, Jean-Dominique Merchet, calls Conflicker.

Mr. Merchet quotes a publication that has somehow escaped my attention--Intelligence Online.

This … Read more

Conficker spreads as Waledec delivers mal-entine

Security experts are tracking two computer worms that have infected millions of PCs and are creating botnets that can be awakened at any time.

More than 9 million computers have already been infected with the Conficker, or Downadup, worm that spreads via a hole on unpatched Windows machines (Microsoft issued an emergency patch to plug the hole in October), by USB devices and other removable storage devices, and can use a built-in password cracker to guess weak network passwords.

Infected machines send an alert back to a host machine, providing location and other information about the infected machine, and attempt … Read more

Expert: Worm spreading in many ways becoming an epidemic

A worm that spreads via removable devices, network shares, and weak administrator passwords--in addition to exploiting a critical Windows vulnerability--is spreading so fast it is becoming an epidemic, a security researcher said on Thursday.

The worm, known as Kido, Conficker, or Downadup, initially exploited MS08-067, a vulnerability considered critical for Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003. It was patched in October.

Newer variants have been configured to give the worm the ability to infect via other means to get onto the network, said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

"The Kido authors are trying to get … Read more