Information Technology

April 1st 2009, the date for the Confiker worm to activate, came and went without the apparent mass destruction envisioned. The havoc is perhaps not as imminent as expected, what better way of advertising your existence than through an April Fools Day trick. Many surfers seek out the better pranks, and would have their interest piqued by a worm on the loose.

Confiker has only just begun, building itself into ......

Follow up:

Confiker, currently, has 4 variants, A thru D, each one building on the abilities of it's predecessor. The worm can find later variants to download, is becoming aware of other instances of itself, and can protect itself. This could just be the start of...... well who knows. The possibilities are nearly endless. What would you do if you had control of most of the computers on the planet.

Who launched this project?
TrafficConverter.biz, the web site that the original downloads emanated from is unlikely to be guilty. Assume that TrafficConverter.biz is one of a plethora of sites that "help" Internet marketeers get their message out. In my experience nearly all of this "industry" is scamming, but it is there and the authors of Confiker can take advantage of them to get their message out.

Apple ? I doubt it, but they could benefit from a lack of Microsoft.
Linux and the open source community ? Possible.
Microsoft ? Seems unlikely that they would attack themselves, but without Microsoft there may not be an anti-virus / malware section to the IT Industry.

One thing is clear. Microsoft products are the target as they continue to develop security holes. If Microsoft cannot secure their products then they need to recall and replace them with something that is secure. How about Linux?