Conficker Working Group says worm is stopped, but not gone

A team of nonprofit, public sector and private business parties known as the Conficker Working Group says it is proud of its success at stopping the infamous Conficker worm from spreading as far as many feared it would, but also note the virus is still on many computers worldwide.

The task force, which included team members from nonprofit groups such as Shadow Server and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), as well as vendors such as Facebook, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, IBM, AOL and VeriSign, assembled in 2008 in response to the worm. Their goal was to block already infected computers from reaching the domains targeted by the worm's author to attempt to update the worm with new code or new instructions. The CWG sought to register and otherwise block domains before the Conficker author, preventing the author from updating the botnet.

"Despite a few errors, that effort was very successful," CWG officials said in a summary released this week, which was commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security.

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