Mar 26 2009 No Joke: Conficker C Virus Coming April 1st
That's right folks, a beefed up version of the Conficker virus, Conficker C is scheduled to wreak havoc on April 1st. Your grandparents may think it's just a joke, but it's no joke -- this is real life, son!
What's known so far is that on April 1, all infected computers will come under the control of a master machine located somewhere across the web, at which point anything's possible. Will the zombie machines become denial of service attack pawns, steal personal information, wipe hard drives, or simply manifest more traditional malware pop-ups and extortion-like come-ons designed to sell you phony security software? No one knows.
Conficker is clever in the way it hides its tracks because it uses an enormous number of URLs to communicate with HQ. The first version of Conficker used just 250 addresses each day -- which security researchers and ICANN simply bought and/or disabled -- but Conficker C will up the ante to 50,000 addresses a day when it goes active, a number which simply can't be tracked and disabled by hand.
Well, just like I did in preparation for the Y2K bug, I'm building a rocketship and blasting off into outerspace before the damage is done. Now you may be asking yourself, "self, what the hell is he still doing here if he really blasted off into outerspace?" And the answer, my friends, is none of your business (read: I'm collecting earth women for the trip). Ladies? Freeze-dried ice cream!
Beware Conficker worm come April 1 [yahoonews]
Thanks to Ashely and Xeta, who aren't worried about the virus because they don't use computers. It's true, they sent their tips snail mail and only read Geekologie telepathically.
Feb 16 2009 Microsoft: Reward For Finding Worm's Origin
And in other Microsoft news, the company is offering up a bounty of $250,000 for any information that leads to the arrest of the authors of a recent computer worm that provides hackers an easy route to identity fraud and theft.
It's not the first time Microsoft has offered a reward for information leading to the capture of a cybercriminal. In November 2003, it slapped a $500,000 bounty on the authors of the Blaster and Sobig worms, and in May 2004, it paid $250,000 to a group of informants who enabled the prosecution of Sven Jaschan, the German teenage creator of the Sasser and Netsky viruses.
"The big question is whether the Conficker bounty is big enough," said Cluley. "$250,000 may have been enough to identify Sven Jaschan, a German teenager infecting computers for kicks. "But is it going to be enough to encourage someone to inform on an organised criminal gang, making large amounts of money out of malware?"
Okay, so what the hell's a worm? Is it anything like a trojan? Because I've got a whole shoebox full of those under my bed. Magnums, ladies, magnums.
Conficker virus: Microsoft offers reward for tracking down author of worm [telegraph]
Thanks to Cap'n Jack, who only fits in desert eagles.
Jul 1 2008 Plush Microbes Don't Make VD's Less Scary
After posting yesterday's Plush Particles I got several tips asking to post the microbe versions, so here they are. They've been around for a while so you may have seen them already, and if so let me know before I sleep with you because I don't want to catch any of them. Each of the microbes comes in a 5"-7" option for $8, or you can get a "petri dish" of three mini-ones for $13. There are a ton of different microbes available, not just VD's, and I posted a few more after the jump, along with a link to them all. Oh, and despite it's cute, sunflowery form, you still don't want herpes. Trust my ex-girlfriend.
Hit the jump for more.
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Mar 14 2008 Neat: What Computer Malware Looks Like
This is what some of the more famous malware looks like in 3D (that particular picture is the PWSLineage trojan).
Malwarez is a series of visualization of worms, viruses, trojans and spyware code. For each piece of disassembled code, API calls, memory addresses and subroutines are tracked and analyzed. Their frequency, density and grouping are mapped to the inputs of an algorithm that grows a virtual 3D entity. Therefore the patterns and rhythms found in the data drive the configuration of the artificial organism.
Well neato, that's not what I thought they'd look like at all. I was expecting they'd look more along the lines of a dragon crossed with a millipede crossed with an octopus but with way more eyes, laser beams, and driving a tank. Or, I dunno, maybe just a wicked coldsore.
Four more after the jump, including Stormy, MyDoom, IRCbot, and Virutmytob.
