(((Is a "Worm Storm" on the way for some unfortunate small nation-state?
Whoever the Stormers are, they've got about 2 million computers in their hip pocket.)))
–Storm Worm's Huge Botnet
(August 2, 2007)
The Storm worm has reportedly infected nearly 2 million computers, "10
times more than any other email attack in the last two years." The concern that those behind this worm want to do more than just use the zombie PCs to send spam is growing; the attackers may be planning to use the botnet to launch a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)
attack. Small portions of the huge botnet have already been used to launch DDoS attacks; an attack that uses all of the compromised computers would have far-reaching and potentially serious consequences.
There is speculation that the people behind the Storm worm were responsible for attacks against Estonian government and commercial websites earlier this year.
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=201202711
[Editor's Note (Liston): The Storm worm is an amazing piece of work.
Anyone who has taken the time to reverse engineer Storm will tell you that it is a very sophisticated piece of software and it is highly unlikely that it was created just to send spam.]
