Panda Security Warns about Widespread Infection by Conficker

PandaLabs recently conducted a study in which it found that the total number of PCs infected with the Conficker worm is continuously growing. The study revealed that around 6% of computers all over the world are infected with this worm.

According to the study, the source of the worm is China from where it has spread to other countries. Some news reports state that the worm has spread to more than 83 countries, particularly proliferating in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Taiwan.

Interestingly, some countries with a higher use of computers like Korea or the USA haven't reported huge outbreak of Conficker worm till now.

According to Technical Director of PandaLabs, Luis Corrons, among the 2 Million computers scanned, about 115,000 are infected with the malware, something that hasn't been observed since the big epidemics of Blaster or Kournikova, as reported by CXOtoday on January 22, 2009.

However, Corrons predicts that the situation may get worse in the future because the worm has started downloading additional malicious programs on PCs or to proliferate through other vectors. Given the worm waging attacks, it is important that users of both personal and corporate computers set strong passwords; otherwise, the entire computers of the company could be infected, exposing the systems to attackers.

Meanwhile, it is also found that in addition to the original virus, its newer versions -Conficker B and Conficker C are attacking with 'brute force' to steal passwords from infected computers. Evidently, with many computers having weak passwords like common words, users' own name etc. the spreading of the worm has become easy, according to the security company. Security specialists at PandaLabs also warned that the worm with special social engineering tactic was spreading through USB devices such as MP3 players.

In fact, computer security vendors are now largely occupied in making their antivirus software up-to-date. According to reports, the similarly updated editions of MSRT would require to be downloaded manually. The tool would not be installed automatically on systems infected with the worm as the malware disables the 'Autorun' function.

Related article: Panda-Like Virus Plagues China’s Internet

» SPAMfighter News - 2/7/2009