It called for users to avoid connecting any unauthorized equipment to the network. The memo was from the director of the service and was leaked subsequently. On March 24, 2009, the memo of the UK Parliamentary ICT service informed the users of the House of Commons that it (the service) had been infected with Conficker. A USB flash drive was believed to be the initial source of Conficker, so the usage of USB was banned then. In the same month, the infection of the IT system of Manchester caused about 1.5 million pounds of financial loss. On February 2, 2009, the Bundeswehr, the unified armed forces of Germany, reported around 100 infected computers. It was quarantined subsequently, which resulted in aircraft in several airbases being grounded for their flight plans couldn’t be downloaded. Intramar, a French Navy computer network, was infected with Conficker on January 15, 2009. And, it was reported that over 800 machines were infected across the city of Sheffield. Conficker had spread across administrative offices, NavyStar/N* desktops on various Royal Navy submarines & warships. The British Ministry of Defence reported that some of its major systems and computers were infected. The letter “k”, which isn’t found in the domain name, is added to avoid a “soft” c sound. Joshua states that “conficker” is a rearrangement of portions of the domain name, which was used by early Conficker versions to download updates.

However, Joshua Phillips, a Microsoft analyst, offers another interpretation of the name “conficker”.

The name of the Conficker virus is said to be originated from the English word “configure” and the German word “ficker” (means “fucker” in English). The main purpose of it is to infect as many Windows computers as possible, which makes it the most infectious computer virus. The reason is that maybe its designer didn’t dare to use it for the virus drew much attention worldwide. Tip: Welchia, also called the “Nachi worm”, is a computer malware that exploits a flaw in the Microsoft remote procedure call (RPC) service.Īlthough Conficker propagated widely, it didn’t cause much damage.

Dns worm virus