OMG!!! Zeus Struck Me Down!

A couple days ago, when I tried to boot into Windows I was unable to since I was one of 100,000 victims of the Zeus botnet attack. At first, I found it strange that I was suddenly getting the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in Windows 7 which, although a beta, had not given me any trouble since I installed it. However, I later read an article on ArsTechnica.com, entitled “Botnet Master Hits the Kill Switch, Takes Down 100,000 PCs,” where I learned that I was only one of many victims of a botnet attack. For those who do not know, a botnet attack is an attack that uses large groups of compromised computers  for malicious purposes. In the case of the Zeus botnet, it used a software kit, known as Zeus or Zbot, to extract personal and financial data from infected machines. Zeus’ most dangerous feature was the kos, or kill operating system, command that was built into the software and, when invoked, triggered the BSOD, making it difficult to boot into the operating system. In my case, I was fortunate that this attack happened when I was already planning on upgrading my operating system from the Windows 7 Beta to the Windows 7 Release Candidate. After the upgrade, any malware that Zeus left on my computer was gone. In order to stay protected from such a threat, make sure you have some type of anti-malware  ( anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc) software running on your computer and ensure that it is kept up-to-date.

For more info check out Ars Technica

Conficker Worm Update #2

The Conficker worm is still loose and apparently it is now capable of bypassing security implementations in order to receive updates from its developers, despite the efforts of security experts in the past few months. While it may have seemed like Conficker’s April 1 D-Day came and went without a hitch, something major did happen without any of us actually knowing it. On that day, the worm received an update with instructions on how to link up with all of its newly registered nodes, which number in the tens of thousands. The Peer-to-Peer (P2P) botnet that the worm has created is now at point where it can longer be stopped. It has become apparent to experts that Conficker’s main goal is to infiltrate and sustain itself within computer networks for an extended period of time.

Click this articles title to find out how to check if your computers been infected.

Beware of Worm: Conficker

All the Internet is a buzz over the looming Conficker worm. For those not in the know, the Conficker worm is such that currently threatens millions of PCs around the world. The worm was orignally made to exploit a bug in Windows. Microsoft patched this vulnerability last October, and then version b of the worm was released in January. Now there’s a newer, nastier variant of the worm out in the wild, version c. Wanna know how it got its unusual name?

Click this articles title to find out more about this nasty worm.