April Fools day virus

[Zal]

"A computer-science detective story is playing out on the Internet as security experts try to hunt down a worm called Conficker C and prevent it from damaging millions of computers on April Fool's Day."

Basically CNN downgraded this virus by... well, a ton. So far it hasn't recieved any commands to "attack" yet but the least it will most likely do is wipe all files on your computer. This virus is constantly recieving updates to stay a head of the virus detection software so much so that Microsoft has a $250,000 bounty to catch who started it. Read more on the virus here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/conficker.computer.worm/index.html ('http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/conficker.computer.worm/index.html'). But as I said, CNN downgraded what this thing is really capable of.

Hope your not infected.

[Tasty]

"A computer-science detective story is playing out on the Internet as security experts try to hunt down a worm called Conficker C and prevent it from damaging millions of computers on April Fool's Day."

Basically CNN downgraded this virus by... well, a ton. So far it hasn't recieved any commands to "attack" yet but the least it will most likely do is wipe all files on your computer. This virus is constantly recieving updates to stay a head of the virus detection software so much so that Microsoft has a $250,000 bounty to catch who started it. Read more on the virus here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/conficker.computer.worm/index.html ('http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/conficker.computer.worm/index.html'). But as I said, CNN downgraded what this thing is really capable of.

Hope your not infected.

Everyones going nuts at work lol. Been getting emails the last three days. "PATCH THE SERVERS" "DISABLE THE AUTORUN" :|

[jettzypher]

guess its a good thing i shut off my computer before comin to work...shall see what happens when i boot her up tomorrow when i get home...

[Zal]

guess its a good thing i shut off my computer before comin to work...shall see what happens when i boot her up tomorrow when i get home...
doesn't matter if your computers on or off.

[Hachoo]

Whenever I see threads/info about these viruses I always chuckle on the inside and then reflect on how glad I am I don't ever have to work with Windows. (I'm a Sr. Unix/SAN Admin).

[jettzypher]

kinda hard for a virus to get onto a computer when its shut off and disconnected from everything....dur

[Frosty]

kinda hard for a virus to get onto a computer when its shut off and disconnected from everything....durI heard when you turn your computer off the virus kicks your dog and drinks milk right ouf the carton. 8o

[Hellraiser]

I heard when you turn your computer off the virus kicks your dog and drinks milk right ouf the carton.

Damn you Frosty. That one made me laugh all over place. Now I'm in trouble since my boss realized, what I'm doing all day long on the internet.

[Kissell13]

kinda hard for a virus to get onto a computer when its shut off and disconnected from everything....dur

The idea of this thing is that they have already infected tons of pc's. The code or whatever is set to execute on/after April 1. So if you were infected but shut off it would just run when u booted again.

[Taliesin]

/nerd hat on
Technically, its not really a virus, but a worm that appears to have the intended purpose of creating a botnet by the hacker.
/nerd hat off

If true, they are less likely to try damaging your machine at all beyond trying to prevent you from finding or removing it. Botnets are increasingly used to make money for the hacker, and they don't make money if your machine doesn't work. They are typically (not always) used for spamming, brute-force attacking other systems (dictionary attacks, for example), or other purposes that benefit from having multiple machines under their control.

When they say that all these copies become "active" on April 1, all that means is they are all now trying to phone home (the hacker) to request instructions on what to do next. They basically sit there doing nothing but saying "awaiting instructions...". The hacker can now send out whatever commands he wants to these machines when they like.

EDIT: You can read up some more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet'), where they even have a chart that shows Conficker's stats compared to other known botnets. Keep in mind that all versions of Conficker (a, b, and c) are all considered part of the same structure.

[Clanked]

I think its funny how everyone is screaming "patch everything!11!" or "It'll take us off the internet on April 1st!"

The Conficker A-C are by and large the best engineered viruses ever made. They are quite obviously a team of individuals with a vast amount of knowledge/funding. Look at the speed in which they implemented their encryption algorithm. IIRC it was less than 1 week after the release of the algorithm, that they had fully implemented it into their virus. A bug was found in said algorithm, and it was instantly patched.

The whole "april 1st" thing, wasn't when its going to go off. This isn't the melissa virus or something trivial like that. On april 1st (judged by a whole set of website timestamps of hugely popular websites) all it did was start checking for instructions from its randomly generated 50,000 domains. The instructions can only be given from the creator due to a 1024-bit key check.So until the owners actually decide to upload some instructions we have no idea what the intentions are. But they wouldn't put the effort they have into it, just to make the computers "blow up." So basicly: The virus is out there, just waiting. On April 1st, it started listening for what to do.

The anarchist in me hypothetically wishes the creators would just unleash hell, just to watch the world burn. It was be rather interestesting from an objective point of view, too bad it would probably screw with my world just as much as everyone else's. DDoSing an entire first world country would be quite a sight to see :)

I have a lot of respect for the creators of this virus. So as someone with a great deal of interest in computer securirty, I can't wait to see what they are going to do with it :) Hopefully something more interesting than a botnet for hire.

[Multibocks]

Alternately, I have no respect for creators of virii and malicious software. Instead of doing something useful in the world, with their incredible abilities, they would rather swindle people out of hard earned money. I really don't care for such an individual.

Reminds me of an ex-friend of mine. One day he got fired from Starbucks and told me about it. I asked if he deserved to be fire and he said, "absolutely." However, being black he decided he was going to threaten lawsuit over racism in management. Were they really racist? No, but he knew that he could get them to settle out of court. /friend

[Taliesin]

Just wanted to update with some of the latest news about Conficker.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/09/conficker.activated/index.html ('http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/09/conficker.activated/index.html')

Recap: The worm is actively trying to update itself, but hasn't shown any signs of doing anything more malicious than just that, so far. It is set to "turn off" on May 3, though I wouldn't read too much into that. It may just be a dormant state that it can be awakened from if needed, but it seems rather clear that it may stop replicating itself after that point.