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Destructive April Fool's worm on its way?

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Valdez

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Yahoo! Tech said:
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.

Thanks in part to a quarter-million-dollar bounty on the head of the writer of the worm, offered by Microsoft, security researchers are aggressively digging into the worm's code as they attempt to engineer a cure or find the writer before the deadline. What's known so far is that on April 1, all infected computers will come under the control of a master machine located somewhere across the web, at which point anything's possible. Will the zombie machines become denial of service attack pawns, steal personal information, wipe hard drives, or simply manifest more traditional malware pop-ups and extortion-like come-ons designed to sell you phony security software? No one knows.

Conficker is clever in the way it hides its tracks because it uses an enormous number of URLs to communicate with HQ. The first version of Conficker used just 250 addresses each day -- which security researchers and ICANN simply bought and/or disabled -- but Conficker C will up the ante to 50,000 addresses a day when it goes active, a number which simply can't be tracked and disabled by hand.

At this point, you should be extra vigilant about protecting your PC: Patch Windows completely through Windows Update and update your anti-malware software as well. Make sure your antivirus software is actually running too, as Conficker may have disabled it.
Click to expand...

http://ca.tech.yahoo.com/experts/chrisnull/article/3081
 
Well, this is bad.

My parents' computer got this. Had to wipe the harddrive completely. Glad we did in time.
 
I think I'll leave my laptop off that day as well. I got a virus two years ago and it was not fun. I don't intend to get another. I'll still be getting all my patches and updates the night before though.

I hope they find the little bastard(s) responsible for this. Lock them up and throw away the key.
 
That may not be enough.
 
Might switch off my laptop's wifi that day till I know what's going on.
 
Yep, I am just going to tell my dad to leave the satelite off that day! But, unless they find the source wouldn't the virus still be streaming around, it wouldn't just last for one day, wouldn't it?
 
I have yet to get a virus at all, spyware though, I get it. I have told a few people I know about the problem. I am an ICT student and always like to find out about these things. I use Microsoft Forefront and it picked up viruses that even McAffee or Norton failed to and corrected a fatal problem with my Hard Drive when it got compromised by something called a file with extension .file and the virus spread. My Norton Internet Security 2008 failed to find it, McAfee failed to find it, but forefront picked it up and cleared the problem quite fast.
 
I better speak to my brother about this. Considering how much he loves using the internet, he definitely needs to be warned.

So, what, we should avoid going on the internet at all on the 1st? What about using the internet on the Nintendo Wii?
 
I wonder if just keeping the computer/internet off that day will be enough; it's supposed to start that day, but who knows how long it will last.

I wonder if the British government has managed to get it cleaned off of their warships yet (not to mention the hospitals in Sheffield).
 
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Thank you for posting this, First chance I get, I'm warning everyone I know.
And maybe I won't be buying that Duran Duran Duran release 'till later.
 
Valdez said:
I wonder if just keeping the computer/internet off that day will be enough; it's supposed to start that day, but who knows how long it will last.
Click to expand...

Exactly, that's what I am wondering too. If your computer is infected, does it even need to be connected to the internet?
 
Only to spread this thing and do what it says.

But as stated before, this only starts on the first. Doesn't end anytime.
 
Check to see if your Anti-Virus and Windows Defender are running; if they've been turned off, it may have been done by Conficker. Make sure that your Windows Update has been done recently too. I've updated my Spyware, Adware, and Anti-Virus, and there's a Windows patch available for download that will close the flaw/loophole that Conficker takes advantage of.
 
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