Last night, Conficker -- the computer worm that's had every computer user in a tizzy for weeks -- finally began to show signs of life. What exactly it's doing, no one's quite sure. Here's the scoop: On April 8, Conficker began updating itself via Internet download, a process which became possible on the April 1 launch date. Before April 8, Conficker had been searching for updates but hadn't found any such instructions. Now they are finally being delivered.
What's in those instructions, though, remains a bit of a mystery: The downloaded programs are heavily encrypted, so they can't be analyzed in detail. We do know that, after installation, the instructions we can see are relatively benign: They tell the computer to check one of five random websites -- MySpace, eBay, AOL, CNN, and MSN -- in order to verify the computer has internet access. It then confirms the date and time. More>>
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