Theory on new computer virus; Conficker
Maybe you did hear about this new computer virus; Conficker….
It has been spreading for a while now; and millions of computers are infected.
But the strangest thing is happening with this virus = we and the experts do not know what it will do…or what it is capable of…..
Maybe it is just an April’s Fool joke – as it is programmed to “do something†on the 1st of April.
It is spreading via a leak in Windows (of Microsoft) – which has been fixed in October 2008.
BUT; as not everybody is doing the updates…. still a lot of people are getting infected….
Today I just had a random thought;
Who are not updating their Windows?
The people who are running an illegal version of Windows and who are afraid that via updates their Windows won’t work anymore.Who is interested in reaching/messaging those people?
Microsoft Windows; to tell people…. “see – this is what you get when you are running an illegal version = you will not get updates and your computer will be at high riskâ€
So – maybe Microsoft is spreading this virus = to warn people (just before their release of Window 8 ) of the risk of using an illegal OS?
Just a random thought.
Source; NYtimes (English) & Volkskrant (Dutch)
Ehm… Microsoft is not in a business of malware spreading. But there are plenty who are.
These things are no longer after specific goal, they are simply delivery platform. Get your backdoor on enough of PCs and you can make nice money by selling service of spreading trojans for others.
True – some make great bucks with this.
They are almost an OS within an OS.
But part of this “discussion” could be;
at the moment you are using an illegal OS – you “deserve” to get infected by these viruses – worms – trojans.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Microsoft would be punishable in most countries if they did this.
Microsoft is offering a quarter million dollar bounty for whoever’s responsible for this. This theory seems silly to me. Not only because of this, but because the more people that get viruses, the less credible their security system appears.
There are a number of computers running pirated copys of Windows that will be infected, but the infection has spread to many casual users who do not fully understand maintainance and security. If this outbreak is seriously damaging, it will make the Windows security system appear even less credible in the eyes of these users.
The last thing Microsoft wants is Apple having even more to use in their agressive, “anti PC” advertising capmaign.
Maybe I’m paranoid but a few things don’t add up for this to be a prank, if it was just a group of bored and malicious programmers, I doubt British Governments would announce that they had hacked into their systems, if I found out my lil pet had done that I’d suck as much info out as possible and I’m sure any one else with their head on straight in the UK would realize this as well. I would only announce something like that if all the damage that could be done, had been.
that being the case, as far as i know windows and pc are the prefered OS for most people including the government, if a virus could truely access any and all computers connected to the web, it could enter missle controls, global communications, and various other important pieces of strategic significance, and cause a complete shut down. in which cause any infiltration, attack or theft could be pulled off at a known date, April 1st.
Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it was something that occurred to me
Actually NMAP have a feature to detect conficker infected PC