Y2K+9

By now, most people except for overpaid IT specialists *cough cough* have heard of the dreaded Conficker virus.

Conficker A was thought to be a test-bed, infecting any machine that wasn't Ukranian [ooohhh, irony -ed]. Conficker B was a pain in the ass that security forces have gotten a handle on, particularly in the West.

Conficker C... is coming...

Yet, on March 6 and on March 17, the bad guys somehow slipped a malicious software upgrade to millions of infected PCs. The upgrade began organizing the bots into a vast peer-to-peer, or P2P, network, says SRI program manager Phillip Porras. P2P networks are powerful and flexible, because each PC can function as a command server. They're commonly used to share videos and music and play complex online games.

The upgrade also included instructions for each bot to begin a daily routine on April 1 of checking in at 500 rendezvous points, randomly selected from a pool of 50,000 domain names. This trick will make it more difficult for the Cabal to preregister addresses, says Porras.

There are reports that Conficker can reprogram routers, have shut down the British Parliament and the French Navy (though the last one doesn't seem particularly difficult), and rewrites security software with little difficulty.

Worst of all is the question of why the Conficker worm has been made, who asked for it, and what they plan to do with it. This sophistication smells of coordination, and I wouldn't put the ChiComs past it. Regardless, "Dark Google", a massive P2P system, or a phishing or espionage attempt. It could also sell processing time on zombie computers for nefarious purposes, or...

...SkyNet.