Technology
This month we have an article which looks into the Conficker Worm written by R Anderson. Along with that, we also have the usual Web Watch, written by Topdog, which discusses some websites which you may not of heard of, but could be worth a visit..
-Stobbo
Conficker Worm - R Anderson
The "Conficker" Worm is a computer worm targeting Windows computers. It was first discovered in early October 2008, when it started attacking a network component present in all Windows versions from Windows 2000 on. It is estimated that between 9-14 million computers have been infected. This computer worm has been exceedingly difficult to track down to deal with because it has made use of multiple pieces of advanced malware technologies. One of the examples is that it makes use of peer-to-peer technology to update itself. This means all the creator of the worm has to do is update the worm on his computer and it will update itself on all the computers already infected. This also gives the creator almost real-time control to counteract security measures taken by Microsoft. The worm also disables many of the default security settings in Windows such as Windows Automatic Update, Windows Security Center, Windows Defender and Windows Error Reporting. There is a lot of pressure on both Microsoft and the computer security community to catch the ones who are responsible for creating the computer worm. Microsoft is offering $250,000 dollars to anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the creators. There has been some preliminary evidence from a Vietnamese security firm that the origins of the computer worm is somewhere inside China, others say that they have discovered information pointing to the fact that the worm is being spread from Eastern Europe. There has been no specific information that has led them any closer to apprehending the actual criminals. The worm was a mystery to computer security personnel because it had no visible side effects, but it was discovered that on April 1 malicious code was supposed to start executing. The build up to April 1st was immense with rampant disagreement among the security community as to what would happen. Many believed that it was similar to the infamous "Y2K" bug and that nothing would come of it. Others believed that the fallout would be immense, and serious damage would be done to the computers. These ranged from the computers being wiped of all information, the computers being remotely controlled to overload websites, or that the worm would begin monitoring the computer for sensitive information like passwords to online bank accounts. Nothing occurred on April 1st. However beginning on April 9th malicious code was dropped onto infected computers and began executing code that is suspected to be a key logger and geared towards stealing sensitive information. How the security community will react to this treat is unclear, the worm is programmed to terminate itself May 3rd.
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Web Watch- by Topdog
StumbleUpon http://stumbleupon.com Let's say that you find something interesting on the web - what do you typically do? Bookmark it? Well, that's what I would do. But let's say that you find this bizzaro website that it's just so amazing and unique. Surely you'll want to dig out more websites of its kind, but how about if you have no clue as to where to go. What do you then? I would suggest using StumbleUpon, a tool that can help you find websites that match up to your specific interests. By using StumbleUpon, I found myself great sites about sports, games, and politics, all of which are my interests.
Good Things Should Never End http://unlimited.orange.co.uk/flash/go A very lucrative and innovative flash website that has tons and tons of games and activities to consume your time. I found myself on the site for roughly 30 minutes. But anyways, this is an ideal site for anyone who's just bored because you'll always find something to do here. This is a "never-ending" website that has many, many fun features.
Don't Click It http://dontclick.it This is an experimental site that I came across that tests and conducts an experiment on whether or not users can resist the urge to click on their site while guiding the mouse. I know that I easily couldn't resist the urge, and my result only helped the research behind the experiment. So anyways, this is something neat that you should check out if you ever get the chance.
Playfire http://playfire.com Here's the Facebook and Myspace for the gamers out there. On Playfire you can do many things ranging from being able to share your gamer IDs, organizing events, as well as joining specific groups such as a "Sal's PS3 group." This is a neat site that I recommend any gamer to check out if they ever want to "get social" with their secret gamer personality that they sometimes keep hidden in real life. You'll find Playfire useful even if you're any type of gamer, because you don't necessarily have to be a new gamer that has all the new technology and gadgets such as a PS3 or 360. Many people on the site have PS2s, Nintendos, and PCs. The community is great, and this is a great opportunity for any gamer out there.
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