We did not, although Microsoft offered a $250,000 bounty to
catch the people behind the worm. Simply by looking at the quarterly evolution of
Conficker infections chart, we can definitely say that it is not going to
happen very soon.
Thailand |
8.35 % |
China |
8.20 % |
India |
7.85 % |
Malaysia |
7.56 % |
Vietnam |
6.70 % |
Indonesia |
6.03 % |
Philippines |
4.53 % |
Australia |
2.94 % |
France |
2.42 % |
Italy |
2.17 % |
Other countries |
43.26 % |
China |
14.59 % |
Vietnam |
9.44 % |
Romania |
7.48 % |
India |
6.72 % |
Indonesia |
5.78 % |
Malaysia |
5.66 % |
Thailand |
5.57 % |
Australia |
3.49 % |
Philippines |
2.74 % |
Mexico |
2.58 % |
Other countries |
35.94 % |
China |
12.76 % |
India |
8.00 % |
Vietnam |
7.41 % |
Thailand |
6.65 % |
Romania |
6.13 % |
Malaysia |
5.45 % |
Indonesia |
4.88 % |
Australia |
3.98 % |
Mexico |
2.72 % |
Colombia |
2.71 % |
Other countries |
39.32 % |
China |
12.96 % |
Romania |
8.02 % |
Vietnam |
7.75 % |
India |
7.48 % |
Thailand |
6.30 % |
Malaysia |
5.64 % |
Indonesia |
5.05 % |
Australia |
3.63 % |
Philippines |
2.91 % |
Mexico |
2.49 % |
Other countries |
37.76 % |
The evolution of Conficker infections reveals
at least three alarming aspects, both for security community and
computer/Internet users:
Malware creators do not sleep nor do they take vacation. The
ingeniosity and skillfulness used to create the five breeds of Conficker are
the strongest evidence that malware authors are always innovative when it comes
to profit.
The high rate of infections also tells that the level of
awareness is still low among users. Not only when it comes to (constantly)
update an OS with the latest fixes against security flaws, but even in terms of
(good sense) removable media scanning against malware (even if it comes from a
trusted sources).
Last but not least, it also shows that many users do not
know that removal tools are available and they could employ them to disinfect
their systems (until is not too late).
tags
I rediscovered "all that technical jazz" with the E-Threat Analysis Team at Bitdefender, the creator of one of the industry's most effective lines of internationally certified security software.
View all postsNovember 14, 2024
September 06, 2024