Return of the Storm: Storm Botnet Makes Comeback Without P2P Function

There were rumors circulating over the Internet about the Storm botnet returning as a new variant and those rumors have recently been proven true. The infamous Storm botnet is being rebuilt using new variants of the parasite that are reminiscent of older Trojan horse parasites.

The Storm botnet, or worm, was one of the biggest and most treacherous botnets known to send out large amounts of spam messages. As Storm lead the way for botnets that spread spam, the security world gave it plenty of attention to it until its demise in early 2009.

Lately, Storm has been spread widely over the Internet just in the past few days and has been reportedly sending out spam messages already. The new variant of Storm has been analyzed by researchers discovering that only two thirds of its code is from the older variation of Storm. The missing link within the new Storm botnet is the peer-to-peer (P2P) capability, which is something that was used by researchers to take the botnet down in the past. No more P2P functions means that the botnet is no longer able to contact its control or command servers. This can be compared to Trojan horse parasites which also lack the ability to connect to P2P servers.

Should you take cover for the new brewing Storm?

The new Storm botnet is nothing out of the ordinary when compared to other popular botnets that are still active today such as Zeus (Zbot). Other than having a close resemblance to its predecessor, this new Storm botnet is nothing to take any extra precautions other than what is recommended such as keeping your current anti-spyware software up-to-date. Otherwise, leave your heavy raincoat at home and just bring yourself an umbrella just in case.