Conficker finally reveals its purpose/intention.

In another conficker thread, people mentioned that conficker got an update yesterday. However, I'm surprised no one posted this yet:

It seems the update has finally caused conficker to reveal its intentions. It's not trying to destroy your data, it's not trying to steal your identity, it's trying to get you to pay for a fake AV.

That's right ladies and gentleman, it's a giant Spambot.

More here: Conficker sells out for $49.95.

A few notes on the updates:

-Trend Micro seems to have been first to spot it.
-The encrypted update seems to have originated in Korea.
-Some believe that this is a test run of Conficker, not the intended payload. However:
-The new instructions tell Conficker to delete all traces of itself after running. It also gives it a deadline of May 3, 2009, to delete itself by that date.
-It was predicted by a few AV companies that the virus was tied to the email worm Waladec. It seems they were right, since the instructions also tell Conficker to download the worm as well.

 

Looks like someone made Conficker due to the recession?

 

Wow. Incredible.

There are some very dishonest people out there.

 

That, or it's a combination proof-of-concept and make-a-little-cash-on-the-side - don't forget, the thing is still out there, it doesn't look like much can be done about it (in terms of dealing with other people's infected systems), and the next update it gets might not be quite so benign.

 

Well that's rather anticlimactic, with everyone saying the world is going to asplode.