There has been a bit of controversy about the validity of the threat of this worm, but regardless, the basic measures needed to prevent this is something all users should do anyway.
In an event that hits the computer world only once every few years, security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of a bit of malware which is set to wreak havoc on a hard-coded date. As is often the case, that date is April 1. Malware creators love to target April Fool's Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we've seen in years. Conficker first bubbled up in late 2008 and began making headlines in January as known infections topped 9 million computers. Now in its third variant, Conficker C, the worm has grown incredibly complicated, powerful, and virulent... though no one is quite sure exactly what it will do when D-Day arrives.
In an event that hits the computer world only once every few years, security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of a bit of malware which is set to wreak havoc on a hard-coded date. As is often the case, that date is April 1.
Malware creators love to target April Fool's Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we've seen in years.
Conficker first bubbled up in late 2008 and began making headlines in January as known infections topped 9 million computers. Now in its third variant, Conficker C, the worm has grown incredibly complicated, powerful, and virulent... though no one is quite sure exactly what it will do when D-Day arrives.
What do you need to do?
Thanks for the 'heads up' ID
too bad I'm in Europe and can't get to my computer until april 8th...
Does it target Windows Vista or Xp?
Conficker is primarily a threat to XP. It is less likely to infect a Vista machine, but I haven't found a source that absolutely rules this out.
It mutates during it's 'life cycle'. Sometimes it will act like a virus, and sometimes it acts like malware. It is imperitive that you have a fully updated anti-virus program, as well as at least one fully updated anti-malware program.
XP is teh n00b. They deserve it for not upgrading to Vista.
Conficker is a very serious threat. I think that the FBI and CIA should hunt down the people responisble for it and lock them away.
Personally, I'd have them castrated/nuetered to prevent procreation/another generation of parasites.
Failing that, arm the world's servers with firewalls that send the worms enmesse back to the point of origin, thus overloading the computer and the resulting blast blows their nuts off anyhow.
How do we know the conificker worm isn't attached to that microsoft scan?
???
I know... the pacifist in me won't allow stringing them up by the nuts and attaching electrodes (that'd fry their brains) to their ear lobes.
and that comment deserves a thorough chuckle for being a fine example of stupidity.
How is this one distributed? Email file exucutable, or some other means.
If we were to set the date in our computers back a month, to say March 1st, would we be able to avoid the attack (temporarily)?
I got a perfect solution for this. Don't use the internet for 3 days (just to be sure) and I think you will avoid it.
It's simple, for me.
It might, but why bother? Only 3-6% of computers in the US are estimated to be infected. I'm not sure about Canada, but I expect that the rate is similar.
There is a very simple and fast way to know whether or not your computer is infected. Simply reboot into "safe mode". Conficker C prevents this, so if you can do it, you're fine.
Sorry, but this won't work. The worm will 'phone home' as soon as you restore your connectivity.
if that's true, it would explain why its worse on xp than vista. Vista is very touchy about its system files...like...none..other.
my question is...with the incompatibilities between 32 and 64-bit, do 32-bit viruses affect 64-bit systems? and if so, then by what feat of software engineering have crackerz made them cross compatible?
Yeah...would be nice to know "how" you can get this worm and maybe take steps to prevent it. Does it crawl up your butt or what?
Emperor_Seth is right. The CIA and FBI need to investigate this, as well as anyone else who wants to. Microsoft has put a $250,000 bounty on the creators of this.
No one knows where this came from, but my guess is that it's coming from Eastern Europe, where a lot of viruses come from. The Storm worm is believe to have come from Russia.
Impossible, the point of origin has so far been untraceable. The guy took one hell of a detour, sent it through thousands of computers before having one upload it. Unlikely they'll sort it out before April 1st.
If it comes from Eastern Europe than that means the people responsible for Conficker are possibly Neo-Soviet Terrorist. So if Conficker C will make infected computers under the control of the people controlling it, than that means that if Conficker infects out missle launch control systems the people controlling it will have control of out Nuclear Weapons. Just saying this is how serious this is.
I seriously doubt that our nuclear missile control computers don't have some sort of anti-virus, or that they don't have the latest Windows updates, if indeed they use Windows (seems to me they would have a proprietary OS designed just for them to ensure greater security with something so sensitive).
However I will concede that if there is a sizable number of infected computers then the situation could theoretically be serious, though I doubt that it is all that serious.
I assure you, the US (or presumably any other country's) nuclear missile system is quite safe from web viruses. I don't even think they use windows. Not to mention the Military has their own network instead of the internet.
Russia is also a hotbed for all sorts of illegal computer activity that has nothing to do with the government sense they don't enforce most international computer laws (unless directed at the Kremlin of course).
*watches as a bullet flies through GoaFan77's window and hits him in back of head for his comment*
Now here is something that would be fun to do if I had a spare computer laying around... http://xkcd.com/350/
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