Computer virus outbreak 2010

Smith was eventually caught when they traced the Word document to him. The file was uploaded using a stolen AOL account and with their help, law enforcement was able to arrest him less than a week since the outbreak began. He cooperated with the FBI in capturing other virus creators, famous among them the creator of the Anna Kournikova virus. A Windows worm first discovered in , it was created by computer science student Sven Jaschan, who also created the Netsky worm. While the payload itself may be seen as simply annoying it slows down and crashes the computer, while making it hard to reset without cutting the power , t he effects were incredibly disruptive, with millions of computers being infected, and important, critical infrastructure affected.

The worm took advantage of a buffer overflow vulnerability in Local Security Authority Subsystem Service LSASS , which controls the security policy of local accounts causing crashes to the computer. It will also use the system resources to propagate itself to other machines through the Internet and infect others automatically.

This led to more than a million infections , taking out critical infrastructures, such as airlines, news agencies, public transportation, hospitals, public transport, etc.

Jaschen was tried as a minor and received a 21 month suspended sentence. Zeus is a Trojan horse made to infect Windows computers so that it will perform various criminal tasks. The most common of these tasks are usually man-in-the-browser keylogging and form grabbing. The majority of computers were infected either through drive-by downloads or phishing scams.

First identified in , it managed to compromise thousands of FTP accounts and computers from large multinational corporations and banks such as Amazon, Oracle, Bank of America, Cisco, etc.

Controllers of the Zeus botnet used it to steal the login credentials of social network, email and banking accounts. The entire operation was sophisticated, involving people from around the world to act as money mules to smuggle and transfer cash to the ringleaders in Eastern Europe. In late , the creator of Zeus announced his retirement but many experts believe this to be false. Also known as Downup or Downadup , Conficker is a worm of unknown authorship for Windows that made its first appearance in The name comes form the English word, configure and a German pejorative.

It infects computers using flaws in the OS to create a botnet. The malware was able to infect more than 9 millions computers all around the world, affecting governments, businesses and individuals. The worm works by exploiting a network service vulnerability that was present and unpatched in Windows.

Once infected, the worm will then reset account lockout policies, block access to Windows update and antivirus sites, turn off certain services and lock out user accounts among many.

Then, it proceeds to install software that will turn the computer into a botnet slave and scareware to scam money off the user. Microsoft later provided a fix and patch with many antivirus vendors providing updates to their definitions. Believed to have been created by the Israeli Defence Force together with the American Government, Stuxnet is an example of a virus created for the purpose of cyberwarfare , as it was intended to disrupt the nuclear efforts of the Iranians.

The computer worm was designed to attack industrial Programmable Logic Controllers PLC , which allows for automation of processes in machinery. It specifically aimed at those created by Siemens and was spread through infected USB drives. It altered the speed of the machinery, causing it to tear apart. Siemens eventually found a way to remove the malware from their software.

It was named by McAfee employee Craig Schmugar, one of the people who had originally discovered it. The worm spreads itself by appearing as an email transmission error and contains an attachment of itself.

The payload itself is twofold: first it opens up a backdoor to allow remote access and second it launches a denial of service attack on the controversial SCO Group. It was believed that the worm was created to disrupt SCO due to conflict over ownership of some Linux code. CryptoLocker is a form of Trojan horse ransomware targeted at computers running Windows. It uses several methods to spread itself , such as email, and once a computer is infected, it will proceed to encrypt certain files on the hard drive and any mounted storage connected to it with RSA public key cryptography.

While it is easy enough to remove the malware from the computer, the files will still remain encrypted. The only way to unlock the files is to pay a ransom by a deadline. If the deadline is not met, the ransom will increase significantly or the decryption keys deleted.

The weekly percentage of outpatient visits for influenza-like illness ILI peaked at the end of October at 7. This percentage decreased to 1. The number of states reporting widespread influenza activity peaked at 49 at the end of October, and decreased to zero by the beginning of January. By the middle of May, no states were reporting widespread or regional influenza activity and most states were reporting sporadic or no flu activity.

In most years, seasonal influenza activity peaks in January or February. See graph of peak influenza activity by month in the United States from Influenza activity was associated with significantly higher pediatric mortality, and higher rates of hospitalizations in children and young adults than previous seasons. The influenza season was relatively less severe among people 65 years and older than compared with usual flu seasons. Like seasonal flu, people with certain chronic medical conditions were at greater risk of serious flu complications during the pandemic season, including hospitalizations and deaths.

Top of Page. The overall health impact e. Based on available data from U. If the viruses in the vaccine and the influenza viruses circulating in the community are closely matched, vaccine effectiveness is higher. If they are not closely matched, vaccine effectiveness can be reduced.

Such protection is possible because antibodies made in response to the vaccine can provide some protection called cross-protection against different, but related strains of influenza viruses. The vaccine may be somewhat less effective in elderly persons and very young children, but vaccination can still prevent serious complications from the flu. Every year CDC carries out evaluations and collaborates with outside partners to assess the effectiveness of seasonal flu vaccines.

Flu viruses are constantly changing called antigenic drift — they often change from one season to the next or they can even change within the course of one flu season. Experts must pick which viruses to include in the vaccine many months in advance in order for vaccine to be produced and delivered on time. For more information about the seasonal flu vaccine virus selection process, visit Selecting the Viruses in the Influenza Flu Vaccine. Because of these factors, there is always the possibility of a less than optimal match between circulating flu viruses and the viruses in the seasonal flu vaccine.

Because there were few seasonal flu viruses as opposed to H1N1 viruses in circulation during the season, vaccine effectiveness VE studies could not be performed for the seasonal vaccine. The season was very unusual. The emergence of a new and very different H1N1 virus meant that two vaccines were needed: one to prevent seasonal influenza viruses that were anticipated to spread and another to prevent influenza caused by the newly emerged H1N1 virus. As usual, components of the seasonal flu vaccine were decided upon well in advance of the season and vaccine production was well underway by the time the new H1N1 virus emerged.

If the H1N1 virus had emerged sooner, it would have been included in the seasonal vaccine. Therefore, a second flu vaccine was created to protect against the new flu virus. The seasonal flu vaccine will protect against the H1N1 virus and 2 other flu viruses.