Number of Conficker.c-Infected PCs Much Bigger than Thought

 

According to Internet infrastructure provider OpenDNS, more than 500,000 of its users were infected by the malware worm. The company has more than 10 million users worldwide.

 

On Wednesday, the Conficker.c worm began utilizing a new algorithm on April 1 that directs it to look for instructions from its developer and opens up communication to 500 of the 50,000 potential newly generated domains. This fueled speculation that the field was being prepared for an attack. Fortunately, the April 1 day went by quietly and no attack happened, security experts said. 

 

Previous estimations of the number of Conficker.c-infected PCs were ranging from a few millions to 10 million, but David Ulevitch, the founder of OpenDNS, thinks the number is much bigger and bases its estimations on the percentage of the company’s users that have been infected. At a larger scale, the percentage of 1.5 billion Internet users may be almost the same. 

 

As for what will happen with the Conficker.c from now on, nobody knows. All can anybody do is speculate.  ”Nobody knows what the motive is other than to create a botnet,” said Randy Abrams, director of technical education for security company ESET, according to Channel Web. “At this point, all we can do is speculate.”

 

If you want to avoid being infected with the Conficker.c or find out if you already are, follow the to-o list from pcmag.com.