Problems with the Conficker worm have become so widespread that Microsoft is putting up $250,000 for information leading to the arrest of the worm's author.
Additionally, Microsoft is collaborating with other industry organizations to form a group to stop the self-replicating worm, which is said to be one of the largest botnets ever created. Among the group's members are Symantec, domain registry organization Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), America Online and Verisign.
Reports have suggested that as many as 10 million PCs have been infected since Conficker first surfaced in October 2008 as a vulnerability in Windows' remote procedure call (RPC) requests; Microsoft released an out-of-band patch
http://gcn.com/articles/2009/02/13/micr ... eator.aspx
Third party information on conficker:
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5860