New, Stealthy Conficker B++ Worm Discovered

nandemoari writes "A new variant of the Conficker/Downadup worm has been detected. The worm opens a backdoor on an infected machine and allows hackers remote control of infected PCs. Dubbed Conficker B++ (and not to be confused with Conficker B), the new variant of the worm opens a backdoor with auto-update functionality, allowing a hacker to distribute malware to infected machines. It's difficult to know exactly how long Conficker B++ has been circulating, but researchers first noticed it on February 6 of this year." If this seems familiar to you, it probably is.

Re:Old news?

[AlterRNow]

News for nerds, stuff that matter[ed yesterday]!

On another note, if the editor knew of the previous story.. why was it posted? I must admit, I'm not very knowledgeable on the editorial process of ./

Re:profit motive

[Lord Ender]

Botnets can be profitable, however, someone skilled enough to write the malware necessary for botnet creation could likely be making better money in the private sector with a real job and no jail risk (in the US, at least). Most of the stuff I see comes from Eastern Europe or Asia, where law enforcement is unlikely to prosecute and there aren't decent Software industries hiring people with programming talent.

So they make money by

• sending spam
• click-fraud (scamming web advertisers)
• stealing CC numbers
• DDoS extortion (yes, european banks have paid botnet owners' extortion demands to avoid getting DoSd.)