Conficker Expects to Dominate Botnets and Malware in 2010

Security researchers have predicted that the existing Conficker worm will continue to spread its infection in 2010.

According to Rodney Joffe (Senior Vice President and Senior Technologist of Neustar), the Conficker menace will stay during the remaining days of December month and carry on in the New Year (2010). The expert, who is also the Director of Conficker Working Group, comments that the worm has no concern for holidays, as reported by SCMagazine on December 18, 2009.

Besides, security company 'BitDefender' has forecasted that there would be greater danger from Conficker during 2010. As per the company, the worm will completely deactivate security defenses during 2010 and will cause hazardous security breaches on computer networks. By collapsing PCs via the Internet, Conficker will block users from accessing certain websites over long stretches of time.

Perpetrators will employ Conficker to go to specific websites. They will use the worm for performing automated clicks on ads for financially beneficial information. The malware will also collect e-mail addresses that will be utilized for pushing enormous spam mails to other PCs.

Remarking about this problem, Joffe stated that the combat with such malware would carry on in 2010. However, he added that the primary need was to assess cyber criminals and to find out ways for stopping them at the very outset.

Conficker appeared for the first time in October 2008. At the time, it rapidly infected around 10 Million PCs. Thereafter, security experts joined forces and beat the worm communication network. The routes of zombie computers for receiving their controller's commands were successfully blocked.

Joe Stewart, malware Research Director at SecureWorks Inc., states that considering the high level of sophistication Conficker bears and a large knowledge base it maintains for creating bots, it may not be possible to make the perpetrators stumble, as reported by SearchSecurity on December 14, 2009.

Agreeing with Stewart, Vice-president of Symantec Security Response 'Vincent Weafer' said that if the perpetrators behaved professionally and abandoned their bots, then due to the botnet's anonymous character, it might never be possible to catch the culprits.

Related article: Conviction of First Felony Spam in Virginia Upheld

» SPAMfighter News - 12/30/2009