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The Conficker Virus.

One of the most infamous pieces of malware to be written in the last few years.

Or was it?

Back in April it seemed like the whole internet was holding it’s breath, just waiting for Conficker to do something, and something terrible at that.

Ultimately, however, nothing much did occur.

Sure, anyone infected by the virus would become a zombie, but not in the Resident Evil kind of way - their computers would become part of a botnet under a remote user’s control.

Whilst botnets can be used for spam and DDoS attacks, not much of this activity has been evident with the Conficker Virus.

Instead, it would appear that all this worm has done thus far is utilise scareware in an attempt to get people to buy fake antivirus programs.

Thats hardly worthy of all the fear it created around the net is it?

And yet the hype still continues, with antivirus vendors continually harping on about how their products offer the best protection against the worm.

Conspiracy theorists and cynics alike mike be tempted to conclude that the security industry has a vested interest in the success of threats and exploits as they keep them in business and make them money.

Some may even suggest that the antivirus industry has a hand in writing the newer viruses themselves.

Whatever you believe, the fact is that Conficker hasn’t really done much at all but that doesn’t mean that its gone away or should be forgotten about.

After all, all good viruses rely upon stealth and the writer(s) of Conficker have the ability to modify it’s code at any time.

I believe it will come back with a vengeance in the near future.

What do you think?