Conficker, Cyber Emergency, and the Internet Kill Switch

Conficker is building and maintaining a powerful network of enslaved computers, and machines infected with the worm can be made obey the whims of Conficker's unknown commanders. Why?

Conficker's obfuscated code, stealthy peer-to-peer mechanisms, evasion of network filtering, and sophisticated updates are exemplary in the world of worms. If Conficker has any equal in its combination of technical inscrutability, pervasiveness, bulletproof networking, and steady innovation, it's another application called Skype. Like Conficker, Skype obscures its operation from debuggers and disassemblers, can't be effectively blocked on the network layer, stumps experts with its formidable peer-to-peer system, and is backed by a team dedicated to preserving these advantages. Skype works this way to gain specific commercial advantages. Conficker works similarly. But why does Conficker even exist?

The public doesn't yet know why such cutting-edge work has been poured into developing and spreading the Conficker worm. But one worrisome possibility is that Conficker's army of zombie PC's could present the "Internet emergency" that authorities (the U.S. government in particular) have long warned about — a sustained attack of such scale and resilience that the network is brought to its knees. The sleeping giant Conficker may be designed specifically to launch just that conflict.


Read the entire article:
http://cryptome.org/0001/conficker-kill.htm