THE WICKED WORM THAT WASN'T
by Steven Musil
Millions of Windows users braced themselves for the much-feared Conficker worm, worried that the exploit would wreak havoc on their systems on April 1.
Conficker was expected to shut down security services, block computers from connecting to security Web sites, and download a Trojan. It was also expected to reach out to other infected computers via peer-to-peer networking and include a list of 50,000 different domains, of which 500 would be contacted by the infected computer on April 1 to receive updated copies or other malware or instructions.
Then nothing happened. Was it all an elaborate April Fools' joke?
The Conficker worm may have failed to cause the digital pandemonium that some may have feared, but that doesn't mean we are in the clear. Just because the worm failed to create much of a stir on the day it was set to activate doesn't mean it won't wake up and act later.
Today, as on any day, PC users should make sure their systems are patched and running the latest security software. People should patch their systems to close the hole in Windows that Conficker exploits and should update their antivirus software. The major antivirus vendors all have free Conficker removal tools.
The worm also can spread via network shares and removable storage devices like USB thumb drives. So people are advised to use strong passwords when sharing files on a network and to download a patch Microsoft released to address the Autorun feature problem in Windows that makes using removable storage risky.
So, in the end, was the hype a good thing or a bad thing?
Instruction:
Write your comments and reflection in concern with the above article in no less than 200 words.
Case Study 2
CASE STUDY NO.2
Romanian hacker charged with breaching NASA computers
Agence France-Presse
Last updated 07:05am (Mla time) 06/27/2007
BUCHAREST -- A young Romanian has been charged with hacking into NASA computers and causing more than 1.5 million dollars (1.1 million euros) of damage for the US space agency, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Victor Faur, 26, from the western town of Arad, was also accused of breaking into the computers of the US navy and the Department of Energy between November 2005 and September 2006, a statement said.
Romanian police alerted NASA in July last year that its servers had been breached by unknown people based in Romania.
An ensuing probe, launched jointly by Romanian police and the FBI, led to Faur.
NASA had to rebuild its systems and scientists and engineers had to manually communicate with spacecraft, resulting in huge losses for NASA.
Faur, meanwhile, said in television interviews that his action was aimed at "proving that several computers are vulnerable to attack," and underlined that he had not tried to make any "material gains."
"I had neither modified nor erased the files, nor destroyed the communications systems," said Faur, who was formally put under investigation in December and has been barred from leaving the country.
An earlier indictment by the US Attorney's Office charges Faur with leading a hacking group called the "WhiteHat Team," which broke into the systems because of their reputation of being among the most secure in the world.
Instruction:
1. Make your comment/s on the news article if you agree or not with what happened to the hacker in no less than 300 words.
Case Study 3
The case begins with the indictment of a programmer for manslaughter for writing faulty codes that resulted in the death of a robot operator. Slowly, over the course of many articles, you are introduced to several factors within the corporation that contributed to the accident. Read this case and answer the following questions.
a. Responsibility for an accident is rarely clearly defined and able to be traced to one or two individuals or causes. In this fictitious case, it is clear that a larger number of people share responsibility for the accident. Identify all the people who you think were at least partially responsible for the death of Bart Matthews, and why you think so?
b. Imagine that you are the leader of a task force assigned to correct the problems uncovered by this accident. Develop your “top-ten” list of actions that need to be taken to avoid future problems. What process would you use to identify the most critical actions?
c. If you were in Ms. Yardley’s position, what would you have done when Rays Jonhson told you to fake the test result? How would you justify your decision?
Instructions:
- Your answers should be no less than 100 words each.
