This book is a cyber-crime story that explores the Conficker Computer "Worm," a potentially devastating computer virus that has baffled experts and infected as many as 12 million computers to date. It is about the next frontier in terrorism. When the Conficker computer worm was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cybersecurity experts did not know what to make of it. The worm, exploiting the security flaws in Microsoft Windows, grew at an astonishingly rapid rate, infecting millions of computers around the world within weeks. Once the worm infiltrated one system it was able to link that system with others to form a single network under illicit outside control, a situation known as a "botnet." This botnet was soon capable of overpowering any of the vital computer networks that today control banking, telephone service, energy flow, air traffic, health-care information, even the Internet itself. Was it a platform for criminal profit, or a weapon? Security experts do not know for sure what Conficker's purpose is, or even where it came from. This book reports this new frontier on terror. The author explores the battle of wits between expert programmers over the future of the Internet, a battle that has pitted those determined to exploit the Internet against those committed to protect it, and awakened the U.S. government to the urgent nature of the threat. The book delivers a look at the ongoing and largely unreported war taking place literally beneath our fingertips.
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