Defying Experts, Rogue Computer Code Still Lurks

[steven johnson]

The beast that Bill Gates built continues to hamstring modern computer security.

Conficker, the most troublesome botnet to date, has been using Windows flaws for spam and phishing and could used by an intelligence agency or the military of some country to monitor or disable an enemy's computers (assuming it hasn't already happened).

Botnet networks of infected computers were used in Estonia in 2007 and in Georgia last year, and in more recent attacks against South Korean and United States government agenciesas well as crippling Twitter and Facebook.

These zombie networks should not be underestimated.

Conficker is protected by internal defense mechanisms that make it hard to erase, and even kills or hides from programs designed to look for botnets.

It is still out there.
Like a ghost ship, a rogue software program that glided onto the Internet last November has confounded the efforts of top security experts to eradicate the program and trace its origins and purpose, exposing serious weaknesses in the world's digital infrastructure.
The program, known as Conficker, uses flaws in Windows software to co-opt machines and link them into a virtual computer that can be commanded remotely by its authors. With more than five million of these zombies now under its control - government, business and home computers in more than 200 countries - this shadowy computer has power that dwarfs that of the world's largest data centers.
Alarmed by the program's quick spread after its debut in November, computer security experts from industry, academia and government joined forces in a highly unusual collaboration. They decoded the program and developed antivirus software that erased it from millions of the computers. But Conficker's persistence and sophistication has squelched the belief of many experts that such global computer infections are a thing of the past.
"It's using the best current practices and state of the art to communicate and to protect itself," Rodney Joffe, director of the Conficker Working Group, said of the malicious program. "We have not found the trick to take control back from the malware in any way."



Defying Experts, Rogue Computer Code Still Lurks

[bemildred]

1. Time to kill all the chickens before the infection spreads. nt

[votingupstart]

2. the singularity is near -- j/k n/t