German ministry replaced brand new PCs infected with Conficker worm, rather than disinfect them

After computers in Germany became infected with the notorious Conficker worm, 170 of them were disposed of and replaced with new equipment at the taxpayers’ expense.

Wouldn’t it have been easier (and cheaper) to have wiped the drives and restored from a backup?

Read more in my article on Sophos’s Naked Security blog.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.