Researchers at Symantec have discovered what could be a significant development in the ongoing Conficker worm saga: a new module that is being pushed out to some infected systems.
In a couple of ways, the new component is designed to harden infected machines against an industry consortium that is actively trying to contain the prolific worm. For one, the update targets antivirus software and security analysis tools to prevent them from removing the malware. Not only does it try to disable anti-malware titles, it also goes after programs such as Wireshark and regmon.
And for another, it also greatly expands the number of domain names infected machines contact on a daily basis.
Up to now, a pseudo random domain name generator produced 250 addresses that infected machines reported to each day. The industry consortium, dubbed the Conficker cabal, responded by cracking the algorithm and snapping up those domains ahead of the malware authors to prevent the infected machines from sustaining further damage.
The new component ups the ante by increasing the number of domains to 50,000 per day.
"It's clearly trying to work around the work of the cabal," Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response, told
The Register.
Conficker gets upgraded with defenses • The Register
03-07-2009
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