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Conficker worm hits University of Utah
Conficker worm is back with improved techniques and ammo. This time its latest victim is the University of Utah. The end result – the university network operations are down and internet access is temporarily put off to over 800 university computers.
A source from the university School of Healthy Sciences say the worm made its way to the university network via a USB device. The worm was detected early and no university data is lost. The Information Security and Privacy Office of the University has put up a post on its site giving tips on how to deal with the worm.
Conficker worm was first spotted attacking computers running Microsoft software in October 2008. The worm takes advantage of vulnerabilities in Microsoft and spreads itself from one computer to another. Conficker was in news in January 2009 when its variant has brought down millions of computers globally. A variant of the worm makes use of password guessing techniques trying various administrator password combinations and then effecting the network.
The worm has become such a headache for Microsoft that the software major even announced a $250,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the worm in February 2009.
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