Conficker Worm

[Ceyfer √]

Conficker worm spikes, infects 1.1 million PCs in 24 hours

By Joel Hruska | Published: January 16, 2009 - 01:31PM CT

It has been over a month since we heard much about Conficker, but the worm has reappeared with a vengeance over the past seven days. According to Finnish security company F-Secure, more than one million PCs have been infected with the worm (also known as Kido or Downadup) in the past 24 hours, with a total of 3.52 million machines infected worldwide. According to F-Secure, that 3.52 million is a conservative estimate.
The problem isn't so much with the older version of Conficker (now known as Conficker.A) but with a new flavor, dubbed Conficker.B. Ars spoke with Roger Halbheer, Chief Security Advisor of Microsoft's EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa); he's been monitoring (and writing) about the current spread of infections. The skyrocketing infection rate is actually being caused by several factors; Roger describes Conficker.B as a "beast," and Microsoft has built the following diagram to demonstrate how the worm functions.

Once run or given access to an unprotected machine, Conficker.B begins searching for other systems or shares within the local network that it can infect. Shared systems, removable drives, or unpatched systems are all eligible targets, as are machines with weak passwords. This last bit is an important new feature of Conficker.B; a complete list of the passwords it checks for can be found here. If Conficker.B manages to successfully guess a password, it moves in and continues hunting for new targets. Microsoft summarizes the new strain as follows:

Worm:Win32/Conficker.B is a worm that infects other computers across a network by exploiting a vulnerability in the Windows Server service (SVCHOST.EXE). If the vulnerability is successfully exploited, it could allow remote code execution when file sharing is enabled. It may also spread via removable drives and weak administrator passwords. It disables several important system services and security products.

Symptoms
System Changes
The following system changes may indicate the presence of this malware:
The following services are disabled or fail to run:
Windows Update Service
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Windows Defender
Windows Error Reporting Services
Some accounts may be locked out due to the following registry modification, which may flood the network with connections:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
"TcpNumConnections" = "0x00FFFFFE"
Users may not be able to connect to websites or online services that contain the following strings:
virus
spyware
malware
rootkit
defender
microsoft
symantec
norton
mcafee
trendmicro
sophos
panda
etrust
networkassociates
computerassociates
f-secure
kaspersky
jotti
f-prot
nod32
eset
grisoft
drweb
centralcommand
ahnlab
esafe
avast
avira
quickheal
comodo
clamav
ewido
fortinet
gdata
hacksoft
hauri
ikarus
k7computing
norman
pctools
prevx
rising
securecomputing
sunbelt
emsisoft
arcabit
cpsecure
spamhaus
castlecops
threatexpert
wilderssecurity
windowsupdate

Roger confirmed that the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) has checked for and removed Conficker.B since December 29, 2008, but it's not possible to access any Microsoft website once Conficker.B has infected a system; the worm blocks access to multiple domains based on string identification. If you've got a system that's infected, you'll need to download the latest MSRT from Microsoft on a clean system and run it manually.


Not all AV scanners currently detect Conficker.B, even if they've been updated to detect Conficker.A—I don't have a list of specific solutions that can't currently catch the new worm, but all of Microsoft's antimalware/antivirus products—Forefront, OneCare, and the Online Safety Scanner—will find Conficker.B if it's present (and you somehow haven't noticed). If there's a scrap of good news in all this, it's that Conficker.B is not a subtle worm.


Roger has provided some additional coverage on the worm that may be useful. First and foremost, he recommends installing MS08-067—this will not remove an existing infection, but it will guard against attack from either version of the agent, provided you aren't using weak passwords.
When Conficker.A first appeared, we raised the question of whether or not Microsoft should force updates in certain situations, and what those situations might be. In this case, even unilaterally enforced updates wouldn't solve the problem of weak passwords, but it would have undoubtedly cut the number of new infections we are seeing today. The size of that reduction would be the point on which the value of forced updates would turn, and of course, that's the one thing we can't predict; there are holes in existing AV products that would allow Conficker.B through, and the worm will attack and infect machines using weak passwords. Depending on how you view the situation; this second strain could reinforce the need for mandatory updates or blow a hole in the argument.



Part of the reason for the problem, however, must inevitably come back upon the users, IT administrators, or managers that opted not to install the patch. As Roger writes: "If you decide not to roll out a security update which is so critical that we decide to go out of band, you play Russian Roulette with your network...The same is actually true if you do not run and maintain an appropriate Anti-Malware solution...Now, if we look at Conficker.B: This is really an ugly beast: You need just one infected machine in your network in order to have it spread across your network fast and aggressively. You can get it even through a USB-stick...it just needs one unpatched/infected machine."
Indeed. Based on the characteristics of a worm such as this, even mandatory updates would only be one facet of prevention.

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source:http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-24-hours.html

[xje4bv]

Thanks for highlighting my article.

[heart reaper]

Another good catch by Ceyfer.

[ding-dong]

thanks for the information ceyfer,

[YuMeng]

i wish i will not get tis worm ==

[LunarWolf]

Nice article. Wow so dangerous! Is it still active? Can it spread just by surfing the net? I hope not as I am online frequently.

[ginzon]

ooooooooo thx a lot..
need to be carefull...

[evilfantasy]

I've had the joy of helping someone remove this. It's a pretty crafty bugger but with the right tools/knowledge is easy enough to kill. Conficker problems

[meohoang88]

if you can't up to date antivirus. you fix it by visit link :http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeuse...040&idIdioma=2

[Pavel]

i wish i will not get tis worm ==

if you can access f-secure website it meens that your PC is cleen as far as i know.