Conficker virus designer found

(Rueters)-New York 04-01-2009(AP Wire feed all news services)
-The lead designer of the conficker virus has been found by FBI authorities in the New York metropolitan area. Sources have yet to reveal the name of the individual due to legality concerns. The hacker in question stated he was not alone in the design of the dreaded botnet. Authorities are questioning the assailant known only as Mirza as to the whereabouts of his co-designers. The conficker virus is set to unleash havoc on computers today.The Conficker virus started spreading late last year. At first it was a relatively simple worm but its creators issued updates turning it into a more sophisticated and resilient virus that has found new ways to spread. It has also gained the ability to shut down a computer's defences.

Anti virus software companies have yet to find a solution to prevent the botnet script from migrating and infecting other computers. Experts are still waiting to see exactly what type of commands the botnet will give it's subordiante machines that are infected. One clue may be in "mirza's" only statement to the press,"i did it for weblo,i did it for Hampton,i had to take down noomle

The programming on the latest version of Conficker tells infected machines from today to generate 50,000 new internet addresses each day that they can try and "phone home" for instructions. Previously, they had been looking for commands from just 250 sites each day. The point of the change is to make it harder for the security community to pre-register those addresses and block them.

Conficker infects machines by exploiting a weakness in Windows, the software that runs on most computers. At its peak it had compromised about 12 million PCs, although that may have fallen to about two million thanks to new security measures.

Once the worm is on a computer, that PC becomes part of a “botnet” – a network of computers that can be controlled by the virus's creator.

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