Conficker Threat shouldn’t be Undermined

Researchers at USA located Cyber Secure Institute maintain that people should not downplay the importance of the nefarious Conficker virus as it represents a popular modern threat.

Further, as Conficker created no serious problem on April 1 this year (2009), when it was expected that compromised computers would connect to the Internet and start interacting with domains controlling them, a large number of commentators are already minimizing the importance of the hazard that pertains to Conficker. This culmination, according to the Institute's researchers, wildly deviates from the reality and is potentially flawed. For, it is necessary to view the Conficker problem in totality. Accordingly, irrespective of whether Conficker would eventually evolve into a tactic for selling fake Ukrainian security programs or prove to be an even more harmful threat, the reality is that it has infected computers massively the world over.

Meanwhile, the Institute estimates that Conficker has resulted in a staggering drain of $9.1bn. The other expenditures it has caused relate to wasted resources, energy and time of the companies, governments, individuals, as well as the cyber community. Also comparing with the mean expenditure of attacks from similar worms in the past, it is evident that the aggregate economic expenditure due to Conficker, including the effort spent to fight the virus and the buying cost of counter-measure software, is considerably large.

The researchers further stated that similar to many other computer viruses, Conficker is a combination of several threats and it relies on various separate attack techniques covering brute force and password-guessing tactics to flash drive infections.

Also, while Conficker has still to display a doomsday condition, it is strongly expected that the future virus that is likely to feature the same abilities would pose an even dangerous threat.

Accordingly, security researchers said, a highly disconcerting aspect about the Conficker problem is that it is possible to avoid it completely if more secure systems are deployed.

Hence, the populace should be educated to think and do beyond just fixing the immediate day's problem, meaning they should make it part of their routine to apply patches, update anti-viruses, and maintain backups.

Related article: Conviction of First Felony Spam in Virginia Upheld

» SPAMfighter News - 5/1/2009