Downadup worm may hammer Southwest Airlines URL March 13

Computers infected by the Downadup worm will "phone home" to several legitimate URLs this month, including one owned by Southwest Airlines, potentially disrupting those sites, a security researcher said Sunday.

According to a researcher at Sophos Plc., the Downadup worm -- also known as Conficker -- will try to contact wnsux.com on March 13 for further instructions. That URL, however, is owned by Southwest Airlines, and redirects visitors to the airline's primary southwest.com address.

"On March 13, the millions of machines infected with Conficker will be contacting wnsux.com for further instructions," said a Sophos researcher identified as MikeW in an entry on the company's blog. "They won't get any [instructions], but that may certainly disrupt the operation of southwest.com."