Conficker computer worm: Are you infected?
Will you be safe from the Conficker worm? Expected to launch some sort of attack once the system date on an infected machine hits April 1, 2009, or later, the worm can be used to trigger the program to send spam, spread more infections, clog networks with traffic, or try and bring down Web sites.
ConnectNC is urging its customers to make sure they have up to date virus protection and have installed security patches provided by Microsoft. If you feel you are at risk, please take action now. There’s still time to get your computer to us for a check-up. Please call 910-695-7068, ext 10 to schedule an appointment. Unless serious problems are found, a check-up will cost $65.
If you think your machine is infected, please unplug it from all networks immediately. It cannot spread and do harm to others if it’s not connected to any networks.
If you are not able to boot into safe mode, you might already be infected!
Please scroll to the bottom of this page for links for further reading.
Here are some facts provided by the CBC.
Here are some things you should know about Conficker:
Names it goes by:
- Conficker
- DownadUp
- Kido
Less-common aliases:
- Worm:Win32/Conficker.A (Microsoft)
- Crypt.AVL (AVG)
- Mal/Conficker-A (Sophos)
- Trojan.Win32.Pakes.lxf (F-Secure)
- Trojan.Win32.Pakes.lxf (Kaspersky)
- W32.Downadup (Symantec)
- Worm:Win32/Conficker.B (Microsoft)
- WORM_DOWNAD.A (Trend Micro)
What can it do?
The worm disables Windows Automatic Updates and the Windows Security Center.
It makes the computer part of a “botnet” of other infected computers. A botnet, or robot network, is a group of web-linked computers — sometimes called zombies — that have been commandeered, in some instances by criminals, to perpetrate all kinds of online nastiness. Typically, a “bot” is installed on a machine through a trojan, an insidious program that can find its way into an insufficiently protected computer in a variety of ways, such as when a user clicks on a link to an infected web page or e-mail message, views an infected document, or runs an infected program. Once the bot has made itself at home, it “opens the doors” of its new host computer to its master, who can instruct the machine to engage in various nefarious activities, such as sending out spam and phishing emails or launching the distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attacks.
Conficker can gather personal information, install malicious programs on the computer and send spam to other computers.
One symptom that might indicate you are infected with the worm, according to security company Symantec, is finding that your computer is blocked from accessing the websites of most security companies.
Difference between a virus and a worm:
A virus is a small program that enters your computer inside a file that is written to alter the way a computer operates. Viruses replicate and can cause system crashes and data loss.
A worm is a type of virus that enters a computer through a weakness in the computer system and multiplies by using network flaws. Worms can replicate from system to system without the host file.
Who is vulnerable?
Windows users who haven’t installed the proper Microsoft security patches and updates.
Computers that don’t have up-to-date anti-virus protection.
For more information, please read:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/03/27/f-conficker.html
http://www.newsday.com/technology/wire/sns-ap-tec-conficker-countdown,0,2625420.story
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962007
