Security firms admit that Conficker worm caught them by surprise
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Conficker worm, currently one of the most prolific pieces of malware in the world, achieved its status in part because some of the biggest anti-virus companies in the world underestimated its staying power.
Speaking on a conference call about the firm's predictions for 2010, Symantec senior manager Orla Cox admitted that the security giant had been caught off guard by the rapid proliferation of Conficker. "We knew that the vulnerability had the potential to be used by malware, but we felt people had learned their lesson from the past," said Cox.
Conficker takes advantage of known vulnerabilities in Windows systems to implant itself into unpatched computers. Once infected, computers can be subject to all sorts of malicious manipulation, most notably becoming part of a botnet of other infected computers and used to commit large-scale DDoS or spam operations.
Security professionals emphasize that Conficker cannot infect PCs whose software is properly updated, and say that the vast number of unpatched systems was a critical factor in the rapid spread of Conficker.
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