After watching the video Web Warriors about worms, botnets and hackers we have a real life example appear to reinforce what we saw in the video. The Telegraph has an article about a new worm which is infecting Windows computers (of course) and is doing big damage throughout Asia.
Security analysts at F-Secure believe more than 8.9 million computers have
been infected by the virus, a worm, which is known variously as Conficker,
Kido or Downadup, and targets the Windows operating system. Microsoft said
that the worm searches for a Windows file called “services.exe”, and then
embeds itself as part of that code. From there, it is able to burrow deep
into the operating system, even changing the System Registry, which stores
settings and options for Windows, to trick the machine into running the
infected program.
More than 9 million computers? Does Microsoft have anybody working on this? F-Secure is the company we saw in the video and they are one of the leaders in anti-virus software worldwide.
Two things stood out in this article for me. The first is how the writers of the virus are constantly changing their web locations to avoid detection. This shows active planning on their part. The second is that there are new variants being released. This shows continuous development on the their part.
I don't think that the goal of such a virus would be to take down the Internet, because if the Internet is unusable or too dangerous for the average user than this would reduce the number of targets for the hackers. In other words, if people start doing less online there are fewer opportunities to rip them off. People might get robbed when they leave their homes. But if everyone got robbed everytime they left home nobody would go out and the criminals would be out of business.
For a worm of this size the purpose is probably extortion, data theft or political attacks. We have not seen the worst of what online worms can do or what botnets could do if they were utilized for maximum damage. Just as drug cartels compete and kill for territories, which is really a way of securing a customer base, we could see the emergence of online hacker cartels staking out territory and waging war against companies and governments who get in their way.
The Internet is becoming as dangerous as real life. Just as those who can afford it live in gated communities and compounds for security, we could see safe zones on the Net for protected commerce. Your options may be restricted, but you'll be (reasonably) safe when you choose to go online.
Security analysts at F-Secure believe more than 8.9 million computers have
been infected by the virus, a worm, which is known variously as Conficker,
Kido or Downadup, and targets the Windows operating system. Microsoft said
that the worm searches for a Windows file called “services.exe”, and then
embeds itself as part of that code. From there, it is able to burrow deep
into the operating system, even changing the System Registry, which stores
settings and options for Windows, to trick the machine into running the
infected program.
More than 9 million computers? Does Microsoft have anybody working on this? F-Secure is the company we saw in the video and they are one of the leaders in anti-virus software worldwide.
Two things stood out in this article for me. The first is how the writers of the virus are constantly changing their web locations to avoid detection. This shows active planning on their part. The second is that there are new variants being released. This shows continuous development on the their part.
I don't think that the goal of such a virus would be to take down the Internet, because if the Internet is unusable or too dangerous for the average user than this would reduce the number of targets for the hackers. In other words, if people start doing less online there are fewer opportunities to rip them off. People might get robbed when they leave their homes. But if everyone got robbed everytime they left home nobody would go out and the criminals would be out of business.
For a worm of this size the purpose is probably extortion, data theft or political attacks. We have not seen the worst of what online worms can do or what botnets could do if they were utilized for maximum damage. Just as drug cartels compete and kill for territories, which is really a way of securing a customer base, we could see the emergence of online hacker cartels staking out territory and waging war against companies and governments who get in their way.
The Internet is becoming as dangerous as real life. Just as those who can afford it live in gated communities and compounds for security, we could see safe zones on the Net for protected commerce. Your options may be restricted, but you'll be (reasonably) safe when you choose to go online.
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