[ISN] Conficker wakes up, updates via P2P, drops payload

[InfoSec News]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10215678-83.html

By Elinor Mills
Security
CNews News
April 8, 2009

The Conficker worm is finally doing something--updating via peer-to-peer 
between infected computers and dropping a mystery payload on infected 
computers, Trend Micro said on Wednesday.

Researchers were analyzing the code of the software that is being 
dropped onto infected computers but suspect that it is a keystroke 
logger or some other program designed to steal sensitive data off the 
machine, said David Perry, global director of security education at 
Trend Micro.

The software appeared to be a .sys component hiding behind a rootkit, 
which is software that is designed to hide the fact that a computer has 
been compromised, according to Trend Micro. The software is heavily 
encrypted, which makes code analysis difficult, the researchers said.

The worm also tries to connect to MySpace.com, MSN.com, eBay.com, 
CNN.com and AOL.com as a way to test that the computer has Internet 
connectivity, deletes all traces of itself in the host machine, and is 
set to shut down on May 3, according to the TrendLabs Malware Blog.

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