Conficker Worm's Creators Foiled

The malware makers who crafted Conficker must be extremely disappointed, a security expert said Wednesday, and not because the Internet didn't come crashing down as some of the wildest speculation had predicted.

"All of their work has gone for naught," said Alfred Huger, vice president of development for Symantec Corp.'s security response team, referring to the hackers who created the Conficker worm.

Ironically, it was the extraordinary success of Conficker that made the hackers' work essentially a wasted effort, Huger said. "Most of the work done on Conficker was because of all the attention it got, absolutely," he said, pointing to the drumbeat of coverage since the worm first surfaced in November 2008, and the frenzy that led up to today, when its newest variant started switching to a new communications scheme.

"This is the biggest worm, in terms of press coverage received, since we experienced Code Red," Huger noted. Code Red, which struck Microsoft Corp.'s server software in 2001, slowed networks to a crawl. "And that's great. I think the threat was genuine, and without all the attention, it could have been a big problem."

The anti-Conficker efforts prompted by that attention included the so-called "Conficker Cabal," a consortium of researchers and companies that have tried to disrupt the worm's "phone home" ability. Other researchers, meanwhile, exploited a Conficker flaw to create a scanner that quickly detected infected PCs.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/162439/conficker_worms_creators_foiled.html

Conficker Eye Chart

Conficker (aka Downadup, Kido) is known to block access to over 100 anti-virus and security websites.
If you are blocked from loading the remote images in the first row of the top table above (AV/security sites) but not blocked from loading the remote images in the second row (websites of alternative operating systems) then your Windows PC may be infected by Conficker (or some other malicious software).

If you can see all six images in both rows of the top table, you are either not infected by Conficker, or you may be using a proxy server, in which case you will not be able to use this test to make an accurate determination, since Conficker will be unable to block you from viewing the AV/security sites.

http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html