Even if you have already forgotten all about the mysterious Conficker worm – it still remembers you. The fact of the matter is, that an unknown number of computers around the world (probably millions – no one knows) are infected with Conficker – and still no one knows why, what it wants and who is behind it.

A great article on Atlantic Magazine tells the story of Conficker and the battle against it – a losing battle, to be exact. The writer has a flare for the dramatic, mind you, but that doesn’t change the fact that the best computer security researchers are still baffled by Conficker.

“You know you’re dealing with someone who not only knows how botnets work, but who understands how the security community works,” Andre’ DiMino told me. “This is not just a bunch of organized criminals that, say, commission someone to write a botnet for them. They know the challenges that the security community faces internally, politically, and economically, and are exploiting them as well.”

As of today, Conficker has a very big botnet. No one knows for sure how many computer are infected, because Conficker now utilizes peer-to-peer communications, so it no longer needs to check in with an outside command center, which is how security experts kept count. The rough estimate is that 6.5 million computers are infected.

Conficker Removal Tools

If you are using Windows XP – there’s a chance you might be infected with Conficker – even if you are protected by a firewall and an anti-virus. There are quite a few Conficker removal tools out there – here are some of them:

• Sophos Conficker removal tool
• Conficker removal tool by Enigma
• Conficker removal tool by BitDefender