The Conficker threat has a new twist, with the worm now reportedly installing a second mass-mailing virus that many know as Waledac.
According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, Conficker-infected machines are now being turned into servers for e-mail spam. Quoting Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response, Xinhua reported Conficker now installs a second virus--Waledac--that sends out e-mail spam without the computer owner's knowledge.
Read also: Conficker's estimated economic cost? $9.1 billion
"Expect this to be long-term, slowly changing," Weafer was quoted as saying of the Conficker impact. "It's not going to be fast [or] aggressive."
According to security vendor Trend Micro, the worm also installs malware that masquerades as antivirus software.
Earlier this month, Trend Micro's advanced threats researcher Paul Ferguson, said Conficker and Waledac originated from the same authors. Waledac has been referred to by some experts as a new version of Storm, a mass-mailing worm that surfaced in early 2007.
This article was originally posted on ZDNet Asia.
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