Back when I actually worked in security, as opposed to just writing about it and podcasting about it, I'd often sit around with other security types naval gazing about the horrid state of security on the 'net.

"What will happen when these malware writers actually get their shit together?" we'd wonder.

The answer to that little curiosity, unfortunately, is the Storm malware. It's a Swiss Army-like malware tool. Once it's on a targeted system it can load Trojans, keyloggers, send spam and launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Neat.

This stuff is so well put together that even the guys and gals analysing it on behalf of various security companies and CERTs can't help but be massively impressed.

Take this from a recent ZDNet UK article by Tom Espiner:

The owners of the Storm botnet, whose identities are as yet unknown, could be preparing to sell off the "services" of segments of the network, according to Joe Stewart, a researcher from managed security services company SecureWorks.

Stewart claimed in a blog post on Sunday that the latest Storm variants now use a 40-byte key to encrypt their peer-to-peer traffic, meaning each node will only be able to communicate with nodes that use the same key.

Sorry, but that's just cool. These guys are actually segmenting their botnets with crypto features to make their management more effective.

We've long wondered what would happen when malware writers went pro. Storm is it, people. It's been hanging around like an onion fart for a long, long time now, and it's not going anywhere. It is... pure evil...

It might be time to invest in some upgraded DDoS protection and some decent spam filters -- this botnet's a stayer.

Coming next week, Village spared from deadly storm... bit of a journo in-joke there. Click on the link for enlightenment...

...and don't forget to check out my weekly security podcast, Risky Business on ITRadio. On this week's show we spoke to Melbourne-based CSO Adam Pointon about what keeps him awake at night.