DragonSlayer48DX |
03-27-2009 06:06 PM |
Fears of a Conficker Meltdown Greatly Exaggerated
Worries that the notorious Conficker worm will somehow rise up and devastate the Internet on April 1 are misplaced, security experts said Friday.
April 1 is the day that the worm is set to change the way it updates itself, moving to a system that is much harder to combat, but most security experts say that this will have little effect on most computer users' lives.
April 1 is what Conficker researchers are calling a trigger date, when the worm will switch the way it looks for software updates. The worm has already had several such trigger dates, including Jan. 1, none of which had any direct impact on IT operations, according to Phil Porras, a program director with SRI International who has studied the worm.
"Technically, we will see a new capability, but it complements a capability that already exists," Porras said. Conficker is currently using peer-to-peer file sharing to download updates, he added.
Gradually, the Conficker network will get updated, but this will take time, and nothing dramatic is expected to happen on April 1, according to Porras, Howard, and researchers at Secureworks and Panda Security.
"There is no clear evidence that the Conficker botnet will do anything dramatic," said Andre DiMino, cofounder of The Shadowserver Foundation, a volunteer security group. "It will change its domain usage to the larger pool and may attempt to drop another variant, but so far, that's about it."
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