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Storm Worm Marks One Year
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-01-21
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The massive botnet of thousands of machines co-opted by the Storm worm began around this time last year with a huge spam outbreak.
 | | Storm Worm Marks One Year |  |
Security firm F-Secure said the spam began on January 18th or 19th, moving from another inbox pest to a far more insidious problem.
"Today, the Storm botnet is one of the more troublesome threats in existence," said F-Secure.
As holidays have come and gone, those behind the Storm botnet try to boost the number of machines in occupies. Floods of spam with holiday-related subject lines, like those spotted by SANS, direct people to visit a fake e-greeting card site.
Instead of a card, visiting PCs get a dose of malware. If those visitors have vulnerabilities available for exploit, it ends up being another Storm bot.
Stopping Storm has proved exceptionally difficult. Between the technology used by the spammers, like fast-flux networks with thousands of nodes, and the likelihood those behind it are well-organized and financed criminals outside the reach of law enforcement, it continues to be a threat.
Until people quit clicking on every link that shows up in their inboxes, and run some sort of regularly updated protection that can at least stop some of the threats, Storm isn't clearing up anytime soon.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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