Conficker Worm Revealed As Diamond Dave!

"I've been called a malicious worm many, many times in the past, so it seems a natural fit." - David Lee Roth

By Fred Mills

4-1-09

There's been a lot of talk about how Conficker is going to create havoc today, April 1. Conficker, formally named W32/Conficker.worm, began infecting systems at the end of 2008 by exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. Since then internet security firms have seen two more variants of this worm and many binaries - files ready to load into memory and execute - that carry the worm's malicious payload. Conficker.C is the latest variant. Its "call-home protocol" will change today, Wednesday, April 1, and may entail an update with some as-yet unknown functionality.

Conficker.C is the most recent variant of the Conficker worm. Exposure to Conficker.C is limited to systems that are still infected with the earlier variants, Conficker.A and Conficker.B, which operate by exploiting the MS08-067 vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Server Service. If the vulnerability is successfully exploited, it could allow remote code execution when file sharing is enabled. Conficker combats efforts at eradication by creating scheduled tasks and/or using autorun.inf files to reactivate itself.

However, BLURT has learned that Conficker is actually the latest "career move" (read: p.r. stunt) mounted by Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth! "The paramedic thing was a dead end, and frankly it got a little gross having to administer mouth-to-mouth to old people who'd collapsed," said Roth, in a statement, adding, "and doing a radio show is boring unless you're Howard Stern and have all the strippers, big tits, etc. happening. So I have decided to be an internet virus instead. I don't know much about computers, but I've been called a malicious worm many, many times in the past, so it seems a natural fit."

Roth of course is being slightly disingenuous; in recent months he's already tried his hand at being a random shout-out generator as well as a Sammy Hagar-blasting asteroids game. So he's not exactly new to the digital milieu. However, this will mark the first time he's tried his hand at being a malevolent, havoc-wreaking piece of software.

"With his troublemaking background and reputation as a major tool, Roth stands a good chance at becoming a huge headache to millions of computer users," said a security expert at McAfee, one of the leading virus/firewall firms, speaking on the condition of anonymity ("I'm trying to get my son backstage passes for the D.C. stop of the summer Van Halen tour"). The expert added, "And with Roth's cultural ubiquity - hell, everyone's got a damn Van Halen record somewhere in their collection - he can easily infect computer users across all platforms."

As the Roth news broke this morning, McAfee quickly issued a security alert to its customers and strongly advised them to download the "Tool Remover Tool," which can be found HERE.