Worm

About this book

Worm: The First Digital World War tells the story of the Conficker worm, a potentially devastating piece of malware that has baffled experts and infected more than twelve million computers worldwide. When Conficker was unleashed in November 2008, cybersecurity experts did not know what to make of it. Exploiting security flaws in Microsoft Windows, it 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 it with others to form a single network under illicit outside control known as a "botnet." This botnet was soon capable of overpowering any of the vital computer networks that control banking, telephones, energy flow, air traffic, health-care information -- even the Internet itself. Was it a platform for criminal profit or a weapon controlled by a foreign power or dissident organization? Surprisingly, the US governement was only vaguely aware of the threat that Conficker posed, and the task of mounting resistance to the worm fell to a disparate but gifted group of geeks, Internet entrepreneurs, and computer programmers. The group's members included Rodney Joffe, the security chief of Internet telecommunications company Neustar, and self-proclaimed "adult in the room"; Paul Vixie, one of the architects of the Internet; John Crain, a transplanted Brit with a penchant for cowboy attire; and "Dre" Ludwig, a twenty-eight-year-old with a big reputation and a forthright, confrontational style. They and others formed what came to be called the Conficker Cabal, and began a tireless …

Themes & subjects

About the author

Mark Bowden

17 Jul 1951

Mark Robert Bowden (born July 17, 1951) is an American writer and author. He has been The Distinguished Writer in Residence at The University of Delaware since 2013. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and also a National Correspondent for The Atlantic. From 1979 to 2003, Bowden was a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Over the years, he has written for The New Yorker, Men's Journal, The Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone. He has won several awards for his writing. As a result of his book *Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War*, Bowden has received international recognition. The book was made into a 2001 movie directed by Ridley Scott. - Wikipedia