Security Fix - Group IDs hotbeds of Conficker worm outbreaks

Group IDs hotbeds of Conficker worm outbreaks

Internet service providers in Russia and Ukraine are home to some of the highest concentrations of customers whose machines are infected with the Conficker worm, new data suggests.

The report comes from the Shadowserver Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks global botnet infections. Shadowserver tracks networks and nations most impacted by Conficker, a computer worm that has infected more than 7 million Microsoft Windows PCs since it first surfaced last November.

"Conficker has managed to infect, and maintain infections on more systems than any other malicious vector that has been seen before now," Shadowserver stated on its Web site.

Shadowserver's numbers indicate that the largest numbers of Conficker-infested PCs are in the East, more specifically China, India and Vietnam. For example, Chinanet, among the nation's largest ISPs, has about 92 million routable Internet addresses, and roughly 950,000 -- or about 1 percent of those addresses -- appear to be sickened with Conficker.