Worst of Computer Worm May Be Yet To Come

Filed in archive Malware on October 23, 2007

According to a report from The Guardian, a new version of the infamous "Storm" worm is on the horizon. The original worm was released in January, sent via email with the subject line "230 Dead as Storm Batters Europe". A worm is like a virus, except it's specifically designed to travel from computer to computer via the Internet. Anyone who opened an attachment containing the worm had their PC become a member of network of compromised computers called Zombies or Bots. These computers will obey commands to send spam, launch denial of service attacks, and more. Security experts estimate that between 1 and 50 million computers are infected with the Storm worm. What's disturbing is it's not yet known what this huge network of infected computers will be used for. The worm spreads quietly and doesn't cause any damage to its victim's computers-in fact many don't even know they have it! It's hard to stop because it uses a peer to peer network to communicate within it's network of bots and control servers, and it's delivery keeps changing. It started with PDF spam, moved on to YouTube and E-Card spam, and even blog comment spam. Last month it began attacking anti-spam websites and even attacked the site of a malware expert who posted an analysis of how it works. No one knows who created the worm or where it originated from. Experts say once the network of zombies it created is activated, the net could have a catastrophic event on its hands-when that activation will occur is anyone's guess.