Conficker: Forgotten but not Gone

Conficker may not dominate the headlines any longer, but it's still going strong, according to Trend Micro's Malware Blog and stats from the Conficker Working Group.

The worm/botnet grabbed plenty of attention earlier this year, and I wrote plenty about it myself. Part of that focus came from its giant infection rate, part from its sophisticated techniques, and part was pure hype. And after a ballyhooed April Fool's day threat came and went with little incident, it seemed to largely vanish from the public eye.

But it didn't go away. According to stats from the Conficker Working Group, the number of unique IPs seen infected with the first two Conficker variants has bounced around some, but has generally risen since the end of May. On 5/31 it was at 3.7 million. On 6/29, it was 5.1 million.