A Lesson We Should Learn from Conficker

There is a lesson we should learn from the recent Conficker worm infection. A lesson we had better take to heart or suffer the consequences.

Conficker, a worm that has infected millions of computers has taken the headlines by storm recently. Experts say three to 12 million personal and small business computers are infected by this worm worldwide.

I’m Warren Franklin. I’ve been in the computer security business for over four years helping people counter the effects of cyber crime. I have seen cyber crime continue to grow at a faster rate every year and it doesn’t look like its going to slow down any time soon.

Conficker gave us an education

There’s no doubt the world has learned a lot about bots (infected computers remotely controled by hackers) and botnets (groups of infected computers remotely controlled by hackers) over the last few weeks because of the Conficker worm. There are far more people aware of this worm than, perhaps, any other malware distributed by cybercriminals.

Some experts predicted that the Conficker worm would activate on April first. Nobody seemed to know what kind of mischief would come from this malware, and it appears nothing did happen.

Conficker hasn’t gone away

Unfortunately, most people have trouble understanding that even though nothing happened on April first, Conficker is still out there waiting for it’s leaders to tell it what to do. In fact, in just the last few days many experts say Conficker has been updated with instructions to find more vulnerable computers. What are these cybercriminals up to?

Conficker is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dangerous worms, trojan horses and other malware. There are thousands of large and small botnets. A bot, once under the control of a hacker can be used for all kinds of criminal activities including: Spam and phishing attacks, designated denial of service attacks, theft of personal or business information, infect more computers, and a whole lot more.

Many times you can’t tell whether you computer is infected unless you have a quality protection program installed on your computer. Hackers, most of the time, operate in a stealth mode hiding inside the computer hoping not to be detected. However, the software they place in an infected computer can cause problems including slowing it down, computer crashes, spam and phishing e-mails, pop-ups, and more.

Thousands of new malware every month

Cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated. They are sending out new malware at an increasing rate. According to a Sophos 2009 annual report over 30,000 new forms of malware are distributed every month infecting new computers.

Even more concerning, hackers are shifting their focus from e-mail to web sites to distribute malicious code and infect computers. As a result, innocent looking web sites are infecting unsuspecting computers and turning many of their computers into zombies or bots. It is estimated that thousands of new web sites are infected every day.

There is a lesson we should learn from the recent Conficker worm infection. A lesson we had better take to heart or suffer the consequences.

Conficker, a worm that has infected millions of computers has taken the headlines by storm recently. Experts say three to 12 million personal and small business computers are infected by this worm worldwide.

I’m Warren Franklin. I’ve been in the computer security business for over four years helping people counter the effects of cyber crime. I have seen cyber crime continue to grow at a faster rate every year and it doesn’t look like its going to slow down any time soon.

Conficker gave us an education

There’s no doubt the world has learned a lot about bots (infected computers remotely controled by hackers) and botnets (groups of infected computers remotely controlled by hackers) over the last few weeks because of the Conficker worm. There are far more people aware of this worm than, perhaps, any other malware distributed by cybercriminals.

Some experts predicted that the Conficker worm would activate on April first. Nobody seemed to know what kind of mischief would come from this malware, and it appears nothing did happen.

Conficker hasn’t gone away

Unfortunately, most people have trouble understanding that even though nothing happened on April first, Conficker is still out there waiting for it’s leaders to tell it what to do. In fact, in just the last few days many experts say Conficker has been updated with instructions to find more vulnerable computers. What are these cybercriminals up to?

Conficker is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dangerous worms, trojan horses and other malware. There are thousands of large and small botnets. A bot, once under the control of a hacker can be used for all kinds of criminal activities including: Spam and phishing attacks, designated denial of service attacks, theft of personal or business information, infect more computers, and a whole lot more.

Many times you can’t tell whether you computer is infected unless you have a quality protection program installed on your computer. Hackers, most of the time, operate in a stealth mode hiding inside the computer hoping not to be detected. However, the software they place in an infected computer can cause problems including slowing it down, computer crashes, spam and phishing e-mails, pop-ups, and more.

Thousands of new malware every month

Cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated. They are sending out new malware at an increasing rate. According to a Sophos 2009 annual report over 30,000 new forms of malware are distributed every month infecting new computers.

Even more concerning, hackers are shifting their focus from e-mail to web sites to distribute malicious code and infect computers. As a result, innocent looking web sites are infecting unsuspecting computers and turning many of their computers into zombies or bots. It is estimated that thousands of new web sites are infected every day.