An Amazing Look at the Conficker Worm.
 

The Conficker worm has been around for a couple of years. From the off, those working in the security sector knew it was an intricate piece of coding, but little did they know how advanced its developers were and still are.

I've just read an article about the history of Conficker and it blew my mind. I couldn't help but respect the coders behind it when I first heard about it - the way the worm worked was verging on the beautiful. Alas, I moved on and didn't really keep up with the news on Conficker. News channels don't tell you the advances different worms and viruses make with each new iteration. Even most of the big tech sites don't, so to finally learn how Conficker worked was an eye-opening experience.

It's slowly occurring to me that my real passion in Computer Science is algorithms - a well-coded algorithm gets me excited. My dissertation next year will hopefully be on self-assembling algorithms (algorithms inspired by biological self-assembling structures, such as DNA) so... yeah...

Conficker is... beautiful. It's a work of art. The methods it employs are incredibly clever and the minds behind it are geniuses; what I wouldn't give to pick them apart and see what else they know!

But I digress. The article is linked below. It's a very good read, and I strongly urge anyone with an interest or background in Computing to give it a look. I think even the "mundane" should skim through it, though their thoughts will be those of fear rather than admiration, I feel.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...y-within/8098/

A quick fact - experts believe Conficker has infected between 9 million and 15 million computers. Either way, it has created the largest botnet in history... and it hasn't done anything. It might as well be benign... but the potential is there. Huge potential. In the worst case scenario, imagine what can be done with the computing power of fifteen million machines. The awesome power of so many machines. They could do just about anything.

DISCLAIMER: Don't take this thread as me condoning the worm. Ho no. I may be a computer scientist in love, but that doesn't mean I don't grasp the ethical connotations of the worm - it might not have done anything, but it should be thought of as terribly destructive, which is a very bad thing.

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If you spam this thread, I will be on you like a ton of bricks.

wow, i remember hearing about the panic conficker caused when it was first publicized by the media years ago. i doubt the creators will leave it dormant forever. i am so curious to see what it will actually be used for!

Aside from the end, that review of Conficker was a nice step down memory lane. I remember watching that worm from the time it came to be to April 1st where it set off that phishing malware. I remember being swept off my feet after hearing how they had implemented the MD-6 hash algorithm so quickly after it's recommendation. Similar to you Lenny, I sort of admire the creators behind it. However, at the same time, I question why these people aren't the ones creating and improving the security of computers and networks. I suppose, with great knowledge comes being sort of a jackass to make sure everyone knows you have that knowledge.

It's weird, the article mentioned, but didn't refer to by name, Conficker variant D. That was the one that started the Peer-to-Peer communications. I think I remember hearing that there was an E variant. But I don't recall what was added to that. As the noise around the web about it had really died down by then; And I think I got a little bored of it as well.

With that I'll conclude. Thank you and nice find Lenny.

The problem with Conficker is even though it has created such a large botnet, and as you had pointed out the largest ever, is that even though it has the ability to wreak such havoc upon millions of users, I don't think that they can. Wouldn't they have already done it already? Most would assume so.

This worm is a few years old now and there hasn't been much proof of it even actually being able to become something unusually capable of damage. All that has been present is its existence as a malware bot, but what is the purpose? Why hasn't anybody been caught, to this date? There are tons of questions surrounding it, and there is still very little information about the worm itself.

conficker sucks, oh wow they implemented a distributed hash table with public key partitioning, possibly piggybacking on it an anonymous routing algorithm. the rest is just your standard radmin server. there i dont even know anything about how it works and that's probably how they did it. also they use MD6, a real crypto pro would use Skein.

i mean sure it has managed to have a large number of infected systems, but keep in mind that's from the same vector as MS AntvirusXP Pro or stupid limewire infected files, none of which has any dignity or honor as an infection vector

and the people behind it probably don't care whether its a 'beautiful' achievement, they just care about making money. and why shouldn't they, it would be the equivalent of thinking youre so smart getting rich by making a super efficient factory that processes change from water fountains sucked up by autonomous self-guided robots posing as water fountains.

Some how I think this "worm" is somehow protecting the computer.(It's my guess but it sounds great.) The worm help the computer owner's by not allowing them to access the crappy antivirus they have floating around. It's like Kira from Deathnote, whoever he/she is they help protect the everyday person.

B.T.W. GLG there is an E variant, look here for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker .

If they were to utilize just a fraction of the computing power of all the bots...

Imagine if they actually harnessed that power for good. In a similar vein to Folding@home, they could find the cure for cancer in a timely manner. I'd find that end result ethical if ends actually justified the means.

Also, Lenny, you crack me up. "If you spam this thread, I will be on you like a ton of bricks."

Imagine how much money they could make doing stuff like that. :eek:

Maybe they're biding their time to figure out how much money they could possibly make doing what.

I'd find the highest bidder in the medical research branch.

Huhuhu~
They could also do crazier things, like make robots, if it's really possible. With all those computers, so much information is... it's like having every page on wikipedia open at the same time and reading all of them.

I thought about the folding thing as well, but couldn't it also be used in an attack to overload the security things on like NORAD, or whatever the government's computer thing is? Like an epic brute force attack or something?

I believe there was a spanish(maybe mexican, I don't remember) commander, or something, who used a full brute force attack, and it worked. Though it may seem stupid, brute force may work, when amazing tactics fall short.

What are you even talking about?

i lol'D.