Conficker: Mass Destruction or April Fools' Prank?
Here at Schwartz, security PR's ground zero, we circulate a daily digest of the latest security news stories. Not surprisingly, today's news is all about the Conficker worm. The Conficker worm is either the most vicious assault in the history of cybercrime or the most well-played April Fools' Day joke. Experts suggest 15 million computers could be infected with the virus, which is predicted to strike tomorrow. In the UK, the most newsworthy case of Conficker has been the infection of Parliament.
Reminiscent of New Years' Eve pre-Y2K, we're all holding our collective breath to see what will happen tomorrow. (And, if you're a PR person, you're busily writing comment on behalf of your clients, for whom the Conficker is PR gold.) According to the BBC, "There have been some reports the worm could trigger poisoned machines to access personal files, send spam, clog networks or crash sites."
Yesterday, security experts had a breakthrough in their five-month battle against the virus, reported The Register. It was discovered that the worm leaves a fingerprint on infected computers that can be easily detected with network scanners. Yet despite this progress, doom abounds: The Conficker Working Group, a coalition of anti-virus firms, has already posted an update for April 1: "Conficker.C is Live and well. Sometime today the new version of Conficker will be awake and function. Now one is sure its purpose or mission."
Could it be a prank? A scam to distract security professionals from a much larger crime? Or truly the worst virus attack of all time? Wake up early to find out...
Tags: conficker, security PR
Posted by Annie Klein on March 31, 2009 at 2:29 PM
