nCircle Releases Automated Coverage to Identify Systems Compromised by Conficker Worm

SAN FRANCISCO - nCircle, the leader in automated security and configuration auditing
solutions, today made available checks that will immediately and definitively
identify systems that have been infected by the Conficker worm. These new
checks follow those released by nCircle last October that identified the
existence of the vulnerability itself. Together, the checks ensure that
nCircle customers can easily and automatically identify any vulnerable
systems as well as any system that is already compromised by the Conficker
worm.

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The Conficker worm was first released in late 2008 and by late January
2009, infections had topped 15 million systems. Security researchers have
discovered that on April 1, Conficker will change how it updates itself,
making it extremely difficult to mitigate and protect unpatched systems.
Conficker may also take advantage of April 1 to wreak more havoc on
compromised systems, as have many worms in the past. Enterprises should take
immediate action to ensure that all systems are patched and that any
compromised systems are remediated.

The Conficker worm takes specific action to disable anti-virus programs
and other host countermeasures. It cannot, however, disable or interfere with
nCircle’s agentless scanning solutions since there is no agent to tamper with
or disable. nCircle solutions ensure each system is audited and
administrators are alerted to any changes or problems, including disabled
anti-virus.

How nCircle can help:

- nCircle solutions can scan systems to ensure that the vulnerability
required for the Conficker worm to compromise a system (MS08-067) has
been patched.
- nCircle solutions can scan systems to identify any that have been
compromised by the Conficker worm.
- nCircle solutions can scan systems automatically and regularly to
ensure operating systems and applications are generally up to date,
including service packs and software and security updates.
- nCircle solutions can scan the network and produce a list of systems
that remain vulnerable to the Conficker worm.
- nCircle solutions can scan the network to ensure that anti-virus is
installed, running, and up to date on all specified systems.

“Sincere thanks to Dan Kaminsky, Felix Leder, Tillman Werner, Rich
Mogull, Adrian Lane, and the members of the Conficker Working Group,” said
Sheldon Malm, Director, Security Research and Development, nCircle. “This is
the kind of collaboration from the Security Community that gives customers an
edge over the bad guys.”

For more information, please visit www.ncircle.com/conficker.

About nCircle Suite360

nCircle provides the world’s most comprehensive suite of solutions for
agentless security and configuration auditing. nCircle’s solutions combine
the broadest discovery of networked systems and their operating systems,
applications, vulnerabilities and configurations with advanced analytics to
help enterprises reduce security risk and achieve compliance. nCircle’s
solutions includes IP360(TM) for vulnerability and risk management,
WebApp360(TM) for web application vulnerability auditing, Configuration
Compliance Manager (CCM)(TM) for configuration auditing and file integrity
monitoring, Certified PCI Scan Service(TM) for on-demand self-service PCI
scanning, and Security Intelligence Hub(TM) for IT governance, risk and
compliance (ITGRC) reporting and analytics.

About nCircle

nCircle is the leading provider of automated security and compliance
auditing solutions. More than 4,000 enterprises, government agencies and
service providers around the world rely on nCircle’s proactive solutions to
manage and reduce security risk and achieve compliance on their networks.
nCircle has won numerous awards for growth, innovation, customer satisfaction
and technology leadership. nCircle is headquartered in San Francisco, CA,
with regional offices throughout the United States and in London and Toronto.
Additional information about nCircle is available at www.ncircle.com.

nCircle is a registered trademark of nCircle Network Security, Inc. All
other registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their
respective owners.

Source: nCircle

Shelley Boose of Shev Rush PR, +1-408-398-6987, for nCircle