UGNN anchor desk checked progress on Conficker early this morning to find quiet reports, and even a bit of levity linking the worm to WOZ’s demise on Dancing with the Stars …
I began chasing the Conficker story around 4 am this morning, news sources across the dateline were posting throughout the night — and so far, the worm is active but quiet. News sources and bloggers are popping up with the same observation.
However, what worries me is that all the press this is receiving — main stream evening news, Sunday’s 60-Minutes, and others — the Conficker programmers may just be basking in the limelight, enjoying it as long as possible before sending the call to action. Keep watch throughout the day. Or, perhaps the joke is on us, and Conflicker will spring to life on April 2.
PC Magazine: Conficker’ Worm Wakes Up Overseas, But It’s Quiet
Mark Hachman is reporting:
The “Conficker” worm is live within Australia, security vendors have confirmed, where it is April 1. At this point, however, it remains quiescent. Security company Trend Micro has seen the Conficker or Downadup worm increase the number of DNS resolutions, as expected, said Paul Ferguson, the lead researcher for security intelligence, advanced threats research. At this point, however, the worm has taken no other action.
Others…
Washington Post: Asia, Europe, S. America Biggest Conficker Targets
InformationWeek: Conficker’s April Fool’s Day Update Begins With A Yawn
Boston Globe: PC users brace for attack by Conficker worm
Free Utility to Detect Conficker Worm and MS08-067 Patch
FOXBusiness – reports:
The Conficker worm utilizes a variety of attack vectors to transmit and receive payloads, including: software vulnerabilities (eg MS08-067), portable media …In response to Conficker, breed of self-updating worms that is difficult to avoid, Researchers at eEye Digital Security (www.eeye.com) have devised a Conficker detection engine that centers on running a network scan to detect hosts compromised or vulnerable to Conficker. In a proactive measure to protect users, starting today, organizations can download from eEye a free utility that is built around the company’s Retina Network Security Scanner that will detect hosts that are compromised with this latest worm and malicious botnet or do not have MS08-067 applied, the most effective propagation technique that Conficker uses.
The Retina Utility from eEye can be downloaded at: www.eeye.com.
The Dancing Woz eliminated–Conficker to blame?
Leave it to Cnet’s Chris Matyszczyk to inject a little levity into this plague — he wonders if the Conficker virus is actually responsible for getting the WOZ eliminated from “Dancing with the Stars” …
Yes, despite the best efforts of every possible method of social networking, Steve Wozniak was eliminated, ejected, rejected and thrown into the tango trash by the cruelty that is the voting process of “Dancing with the Stars.” … the chaps behind the Conficker virus interfered with Woz’s inexorable rise to dancing’s highest peak, fearing that his survival, and the uncontrolled excitement it would undoubtedly engender, would interfere with their attempt to dominate the online world April 1.
Read Matyszczyk’s muse at: news.cnet.com
You can follow along with this Google News link that should update itself throughout the day.
