Infosecurity.US

News, last week of another military based Conficker infection, this time with the German military the target (the first noted  military-related invasion was a massive Conficker (aka Downadup) infection infiltrating British and French Air Force systems, [reportedly both mobile and stationary resources]).

Ponder this, grasshopper… What are the true military and global consequences of the latest Microsoft Corporation (NasdaqGS: MSFT) vulnerabilities if multiple military targets, in nuclear capable countries, are compromised with any specific worm?  Nuclear Capable Botnets? Will any bounty issued by the software giant really provide resolution? Treating the symptoms rather than the cause, perchance? Do you trust the company’s self-regulation in regards to security? Why fix it, if you can sell new “more secure” software down the road, using the previous version’s issues as a selling point? Why is Microsoft powerless in stopping worm attacks in their operating system code?  Cruft you say? Astounding.

A short snippet of the original post appears after the jump.

From Monster and Critics: “Computer virus invades German defence computers“

Berlin – A computer virus which has already hit defence computers in Britain and France has spread to German military systems, the Defence Ministry in Berlin said Saturday. The Conficker computer worm has exasperated computer users right around the globe in recent weeks, but security-conscious military users had been thought to be better prepared to repel it. The spokesman said several German armed forces sites had to be disconnected from the military network after hundreds of computers were taken over by Conficker. However, no other disruptions were reported. He said army computer recovery specialists and a private company were ridding the computers of the virus. France suffered a military outage from the worm in mid-January. Britain’s Defence Ministry has also admitted problems with it. Microsoft has posted a reward of 250,000 dollars for the capture of the person who spread the virus, which takes over Windows operating systems, attempts to crack passwords and downloads malware from the internet.

• Conficker Windows virus infects 15 million PCs (telegraph.co.uk)
• Computer virus spreads quickly, but may be a dud (ctv.ca)
• Microsoft: Bounty on Conficker worm creator (crunchgear.com)
• Security industry counts down to Conficker activation (theregister.co.uk)
• French airforce surrenders to German virus (inquisitr.com)
• French fighter planes grounded by computer virus (telegraph.co.uk)
• Conficker Windows virus infects 15 million PCs (telegraph.co.uk)