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First detected on the Internet in January 2007, the Storm botnet and worm are so-called because of the storm-related subject lines its infectious e-mail employed initially, such as “230 dead as storm batters Europe.” Later provocative subjects included, “Chinese missile shot down USA aircraft,” and “U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has kicked German Chancellor Angela Merkel

At certain points in time, the Storm worm used to spread the botnet has attempted to release hundreds or thousands of versions of itself onto the Internet, in a concentrated attempt to overwhelm the defenses of anti-virus and malware security firms.
Towards the end of 2008 Storm lost much of its steam and was pronounced dead by many security firms. Microsoft claims to have helped considerably in the effort of stopping the Storm worm with its Malicious Removal Tool.

Slammer\Sapphire Worm - The SapphireSlammer Worm was the fastest computer worm in history. As it began spreading throughout the Internet, it doubled in size every 8.5 seconds. It infected more than 90 percent of vulnerable hosts within 10 minutes.

The worm  began to infect hosts slightly before 05:30 UTC on Saturday, January 25. Sapphire exploited a buffer overflow vulnerability in computers on the Internet running Microsoft’s SQL Server or MSDE 2000 (Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine). This weakness in an underlying indexing service was discovered in July 2002; Microsoft released a patch for the vulnerability before it was announced The worm infected at least 75,000 hosts, perhaps considerably more, and caused network outages and such unforeseen consequences as canceled airline flights, interference with elections, and ATM failures. Several disassembled versions of the source code of the worm are available
Sapphire’s spreading strategy is based on random scanning — it selects IP addresses at random to infect, eventually finding all susceptible hosts.

3.) Blaster Worm - Also known as W32/Lovs.an.worm.a, Win32.Poza.A, Lovsan, WORM-MSBLAST.A, W32/Blaster-A, W32/Blaster, and Worm.Win32.Lovesan.

Discovered on August 11, 2003, the Blaster computer worm adversely affected Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP. The worm attempted to download the msblast.exe file to the Windows Directory and then execute it. It also attempted to conduct a Denial of Service (DoS) attack on the Microsoft Windows Update Web server to stop the user from applying a patch on his or her computer against the DCOM RPC vulnerability. Within 24 hours of its detection, Blaster had infected more than 300,000 computers. Symantec Security Response downgraded the threat of the Blaster Worm to a Category 2 from a Category 3 severity rating as of February 26, 2004.

Sasser Worm – Sasser was first noticed and started spreading on April 30,  2004. This worm was named Sasser because it spreads by exploiting a buffer overflow in the component known as LSASS (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service) on the affected operating systems. The worm scans different ranges of IP addresses and connects to victims’ computers primarily through TCP port 445

Microsoft’s analysis of the worm indicates that it may also spread through port 139. Several variants called Sasser.B, Sasser.C, and Sasser.D appeared within days (with the original named Sasser.A).

• The effects of Sasser include the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) having all its satellite communications blocked for hours and the U.S. flight company Delta Air Lines having to cancel several trans-atlantic flights because its computer systems had been swamped by the worm.
• The Nordic insurance company If and their Finnish owners Sampo Bank came to a complete halt and had to close their 130 offices in Finland. The British Coastguard had its electronic mapping service disabled for a few hours, and Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Post, and the European Commission also all had issues with the worm.
• The X-ray department at Lund University Hospital had all their four layer X-ray machines disabled for several hours and had to redirect emergency X-ray patients to a nearby hospital

Conficker – A computer worm targeting the Microsoft Windows operating system that was first detected in October 2008. An early variant of the worm propagated through the Internet by exploiting a vulnerability in the network stack of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 Beta, and Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta that was discovered earlier that month

• Conficker is believed to be the most widespread computer worm infection since SQL Slammer in 2003. The initial rapid spread of the worm has been attributed to the number of Windows PCs (estimated at 30%) which have yet to apply the Microsoft patch for the MS08-067 vulnerability.
• By January 2009, the estimated number of infected computers ranged from almost 9 million to 15 million Antivirus software vendor Panda Security reported that of the 2 million computers analyzed through ActiveScan, around 115,000 (6%) were infected with Conficker.
• Intramar, the French Navy computer network, was infected with Conficker on 15 January 2009. The network was subsequently quarantined, forcing aircraft at several airbases to be grounded because their flight plans could not be downloaded.
  
• The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence reported that some of its major systems and desktops were infected. The worm has spread across administrative offices, NavyStar/N* desktops aboard various Royal Navy warships and Royal Navy submarines, and hospitals across the city of Sheffield reported infection of over 800 computers.
• On 2 February 2009, the Bundeswehr, the unified armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany reported that about one hundred of their computers were infected.
• A memo from the British Director of Parliamentary ICT informed the users of the House of Commons on 24 March 2009 that it had been infected with the worm. The memo, which was subsequently leaked, called for users to avoid connecting any unauthorized equipment to the network.

• The worm is believed to have gained a foothold on the university’s network through an infected USB device, said a spokesman with the university’s school of health sciences. The Conficker worm managed to infect about 800 computers at the University of Utah last week, prompting the school to block Internet access temporarily to contain the infection.

Important lessons can be learned from these outbreaks. Make sure to keep your virus definitions up to date and patch your systems!

• Make sure your OS has all Critical and Recommended Updates (Specifically MS08-067)
• Ensure your Anti-virus Software has latest definitions
• Don’t Panic ..Nobody really knows what will happen come 4/1/09
• For a Removal Tool specifically for Conficker visit http://bit.ly/3N38z or http://bit.ly/2h4ZGeGraph shows below how infection spreads

Graph below shows how Conficker spreads