The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has released a DHS-developed tool aimed at squashing the Conficker worm.
The announcement followed similar news from the Honeynet Project and the Conficker Cabal, which worked over the weekend to develop a tool to scan for the worm. The DHS tool was developed by the department’s United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and is available to federal and state partners via the Government Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (GFIRST) Portal. It is also available to private sector partners through the IT and Communications sector Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs).
“While tools have existed for individual users, this is the only free tool-and the most comprehensive one-available for enterprises like federal and state government and private sector networks to determine the extent to which their systems are infected by this worm,” said US-CERT Director Mischel Kwon in a statement. “Our experts at US-CERT are working around the clock to increase our capabilities to address the cyber risk to our nation’s critical networks and systems, both from this threat and all others.”
DHS officials say they are working closely with private sector and government partners to minimize any impact from the Conficker worm.