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April 1st Virus, Conficker
March 31, 2009 | Tagged 1st, april, conficker, mcafee, security, symantec, threat, virus, vista, windows, worm, XP | 2 Comments
When my family asked me this weekend about the ‘big virus’ striking on April 1st, I summarily dismissed it as another in the long line of scares propagated by the media. I have PTSD from the Fox/Bush nightmare.
Well, it appears I need to take my head out of the sand, keep hope alive that Obama will save us, while being wary of actual threats.
The Conficker or Downadup virus does appear to have gotten hold of millions of computers around the world and it is believed some action will be taken by the installed worms on hard drives to contact a control computer by way of randomly generated IP addresses.
The threat is highest for those who have not updated their Microsoft Software and are not running security software like McAfee or Symantec. If you have been dutiful in keeping your computers up to date, there is no threat. However, for those computers on a network where the administrator has let Microsoft Server become vulnerable, this worm can infect the entire network through jumping thumb drives, email attachments, etc.
If you are a little dubious of your IT guy, then maybe forward some of the news stories out there as well as details about what to do to verify if you are infected and steps to take. If you ARE the IT person, well, take note of the information presented below.
If you have a PC running on Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, Microsoft has good information on steps to take to verify that you are clear of the virus.
Additional information about the virus from McAfee & Symantec.
A detailed description of the worm by Symantec in PDF is available HERE
Comments
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It’s good at least that there was advance warning for the Conficker worm; i’m sure a lot of people were spared a lot of hardship because of this
[Reply]
fritzboyle Reply:
April 1st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I certainly hope so. I also believe people should take more care of their computer and network’s health. preventative maintenance can help avoid most problems.
[Reply]