Malware


The Infections That Will Not Die: Conficker and AutoRun

One of the wonderful things about some pieces of malware is that, like that slightly dodgy uncle who never seems to have a job, they never really go away. They just sort of hang about in the background, waiting for the right time to hit you up for some spare cash or CPU cycles. It appears that the once-celebrated and now nearly forgotten Conficker malware has entered that realm.


Long content to talk about the “what” behind cyber crime, the nation’s top computer security cops descended on New York City this week for the FBI’s International Conference on Cyber Crime ready to talk about “who.” But while discussions of tools and techniques for identifying criminal actors online dominate the schedule, cyber security experts say law enforcement still has a long way to go.

The Ramnit worm, which was first detected more than 18 months ago, has continued to evolve and now has spawned a version that is targeting victims’ Facebook credentials, and with great success. Researchers at Seculert in Israel have found a variant of Ramnit that is stealing those credentials and then trying to compromise other accounts belonging to the victims, including VPNs, email and other sensitive accounts.

It’s that most un-wonderful time of the year: the time when everyone writes fluffy articles full of lists, retrospectives and look-aheads. Even we did it. Many of these lists involve some variation on the theme of most overhyped or least organic or or most awesomest or lowest fat content. This article is not those articles.