Mumba Botnet Has Infected 55,000 Computers

Research from free anti-virus software-maker AVG was released earlier this week and the findings show that over 55,000 computers from all over the world have been infected by the Mumba botnet. The report, which was prepared by the AVG Web Security Research Team, can be found at Blogs.AVG.com.

According to the report, over 60GB of personal data, such as social networking information, banking information, credit card information, and emails, has been stolen from people's personal and business computers. At least 33% of the infected computers are located in the United States, followed by 17% in German, 7% in Spain, 6% in the United Kingdom, and 5% in both Mexico and Canada.

Mumba botnet is a virus that was created by a group of cybercriminals known as the Avalanche Group. The Group is known for creating a mass-production system for phishing sites and other malware. Mumba uses Zeus, one of the most current and common forms of malware.

In a press release, Yuval Ben-Itzhak, the Senior Vice President of AVG said, "The unique infrastructure of the Mumba botnet means that going after the servers hosting the stolen data is now much more difficult than before. As cybercriminals become increasingly sophisticated, it is paramount that consumers and corporations prevent their PCs from becoming the next victim in these dynamic cyber attacks by using anti-virus and LinkScanner tools such as those that AVG offers for free."

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Conficker Worm: Panic Passes

I posted early about the intended Conficker C virus that was set to wreak havoc on computers across the world yesterday, April 1. Well I am pleased to announce that the doomsday affects that were reported to take place didn't happen, yet.

But even though it didn't happen like predicted, doesn't mean it won't happen at all. People should be aware that this nasty virus is still out there and could attack at any time. This worm was no small disruption. It was supposed to disrupt the internet, has already worked its way into 12 million computers, and was feared worldwide. The virus is no actively looking for instructions on the internet. Either its creator hasn't delivered harmful instructions yet or the attempts to raise awareness has scared of the creators. Whatever the cause, the full effects of Conficker C have yet to be experienced. Conficker has infected anywhere from 12 million to 15million computers since early 2009 which includes everything from Windows 2000 to the Windows 7 Beta and Windows Server 2000 and 2008.

Things even got so bad in Europe that the French Air Force, Royal Navy Warships and submarines, the Sheffield Hospital network, the UK Ministry of Defense, the German Bundeswehr, and Norwegian Police saw affects from the virus which shows the severity of the worm.

The worm is programmed to evolve into multiple versions and has a sophisticated way of avoiding eradication. However, Conficker is not likely to cause massive internet crashes for one specific reason: it would be counter productive to its programming and the creator, who more than likely is out for money. It is designed to infect multiple windows based computers and create a botnet. The botnet would then function in concert to work as a supercomputer. From here it could do anything like generate large amounts of spam emails.

Although Conficker hasn't unleashed its fury yet, people should still take precautions. The most at risk are small to medium sized businesses that rely heavily in their computers but may have poor disaster prevention strategies. People should take as many precautions as possible to prevent infection from the virus. They should update everything related to their operating system and do everything possible to update their anti-virus and anti-spyware protection.

Since we were all in a big worry about this hitting on April 1, it might be safe to say that most of us are prepared. But even though the events originally set to take place yesterday didn't happen, doesn't mean they won't. Conficker C is still at large and ready to attack, so do like the Boy Scouts do and "Always Be Prepared."

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Conficker Worm Set to Hit April 1

No this is not an April Fool's Day joke, this is serious. Every few years, the internet is hit by a vicious malware that wreaks havoc on on computers. And it all seems to happen on one day, April 1st, and security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of this hazard. For some reason, malware creators like to target April Fool's Day and this latest attack, known as Conficker C, is rumored to be the most damaging attack seen in years.

The infamous Conficker had its debut in late 2008 and started getting buzz when its victims reached over 9 million in January. This third installment, known as Conficker C, has grown increasingly more virulent, complicated and powerful. However, no one really knows what exactly the damages will be come emergence day.

What is really impressive, is that Microsoft is offering a quarter-million dollar bounty on the head of the maker of the worm. Security researchers are desperately digging into the worm's code attempting to engineer a cure or find the writer before the deadline. What is known, is that as of April 1, all infected computers will come under the control of one master computer located somewhere in the vast reaches of the internet. At this point, anything and everything is possible. These controlled computers could do a number of things. They could steal personal information, completely wipe hard drives, deny service, or even generate more pop-ups and extortion-like services designed to sell you made up security software.

Conficker is no ordinary virus, it's smarter than the others. It is really really good at hiding it's tracks. It uses an incredible amount of URLs to communicate with its HQ computer. Conficker's first version only used about 250 different URLs daily, allowing researchers and ICANN buy and disable. Unfortunately, Conficker C has increased the dosage to an astonishing 50,000 different addresses each day! This incredible size makes ot impossible track and disable each one by hand.

Right now you should be extra careful about protecting your computer. Only patch Windows through Windows update and upgrade your anti-malware software as well. You should also make sure your antivirus software is running too, because Conficker just may have disabled it.

It makes me wonder, what with all this talk about master computers, computer HQ, controlled computers, nation-wide extremely violent computer viruses and such, if we are slowly approaching the D-Day foreseen in the Terminator movies? On a serious note though, what is the purpose of these computer viruses? Why do people sit around and create something that ruins people's lives? What joy do they get from it? I guess we may never know. All we can do is protect ourselves as best we can and pray to God that the amazing people trying to help us stop this virus before it infects us all.

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