Conficker Worm Called An Epidemic

Conficker Worm Called An Epidemic

Jason Lee Miller
Staff Writer
2009-01-22

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A week and a half ago, Panda Security warned about the potential spread
of the Conficker worm, a virus spread via USB devices. Since then, Panda
has found that nearly six percent of scanned computers were infected,
spanning 83 countries.

Conficker Worm Called An Epidemic

Originating in China, Conficker worm infection seems concentrated in the
United States, Taiwan and Brazil. PandaLabs found 18,000 infected
computers in the US alone. Analyzing two million computers, 5.77
percent, or 115,000 were found to be carrying the Conficker worm.

In the time since the security company issued an "orange alert"
regarding the threat level of this malicious program, Panda says
variants have been identified that launch brute force attacks to extract
passwords from infected computers and internal networks. The company
says the frequency of "weak" passwords-common dictionary words, own
names-have aided the outbreak.

http://www.securitypronews.com/insiderreports/insider/spn-49-20090122ConfickerWormCalledAnEpidemic.html