Conficker is not Down and Out Yet

Jacksonville – The Conficker worm, which has infected one of the largest numbers of Microsoft Windows computers ever, is not out yet. It has infected millions of computers, and still nobody knows what its purpose is, except for tying together the computers to create one of, if not the, largest “botnets” ever, which is a collection of computers that tie together their processing power to complete the task that their controller sets them to.

For a while, it was believed that this worm was neutralized. Many countries, fearing what these computers could do in the hands of a criminal, were monitoring their Internet Service Providers, to make sure that nothing malicious was done. Certain ways have been found to remove this program, even though it acts as a rootkit, but now people are starting to worry: the worm is evolving. The worm has, in fact, gone through many stages.

The initial worm required infected computers to contact certain well-known internet sites to determine if they have internet access, and then contact millions of other domains, of which any of them could have given the worms these updates.

Since then, the worm has been constantly evolving. The most recent version of the worm downloads a fake antivirus software to the computer, which informs the owner that they need to pay fifty dollars to remove malware on their computer.

However, their is good news: the number of infected computers has dropped from nine million down to only one or two million computers.