Microsoft Warns of Copycat Conficker Worm 86
nk497 writes "Microsoft is warning that malware writers have adapted a four-year-old virus to use features of Conficker to take advantage of Windows flaws. Other similarities between the adapted Neeris worm and Conficker are that it downloads a copy of the worm from the attacking machine using HTTP, spreads via autorun, and uses a driver to patch the TCP/IP layer of the system. It even saw a traffic jump around the first of April, when the Conficker hype peaked. But the Microsoft researchers suggested Conficker may have copied Neeris, or that they're copying each other: 'It is possible that these miscreants somehow collaborate or at least are aware of each other's "products."'"
Re:Four years? (Score:3, Informative)
No, they are updating an old virus to use the new flaws. Think about it. If the old virus used the same security holes as Conficker then it would not need to be updated.
Idiots guide to detecting Conficker (Score:5, Informative)
This tickled my funny bone for some reason; you have to love the lets-use-pictures approach!
Re:autorunamuk (Score:2, Informative)
It's pretty rare on Windows to actually need to reboot for software installation. The only things you can't really do are replace or delete files that are in use, and remove / replace a driver without rebooting.
The real secret - it hasn't really ever been necessary. Almost everything you'd want to do in an application installer could be done without rebooting even on Windows 95. Only system-level software (drivers, for example) ever really needed a reboot, and even that never really needed it on Windows NT.
Unfortunately, many (most?) people who develop installers on Windows don't realise that rebooting is unnecessary, so they do it anyway. Idiots.
Anyway, what does that have to do with autorun? I thought autorun was mostly because average computer users didn't know where to find the CD drive after they'd inserted a disk, and Windows didn't just copy Mac OS and stick an icon on the desktop.