A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall Ask Mr. Gremelin Conflicker Worm Warning April 1 ,,

Where's James???

From Yahoo Computer Reports
Orange warning Level!!!!!!!!!!!
"Tomorrow -- April 1 -- is D-Day for Conficker, as whatever nasty payload it's packing is currently set to activate. What happens come midnight is a mystery: Will it turn the millions of infected computers into spam-sending zombie robots? Or will it start capturing everything you type -- passwords, credit card numbers, etc. -- and send that information back to its masters?

No one knows, but we'll probably find out soon.

Or not. As Slate notes, Conficker is scheduled to go "live" on April 1, but whoever's controlling it could choose not to wreak havoc but instead do absolutely nothing, waiting for a time when there's less heat. They can do this because the way Conficker is designed is extremely clever: Rather than containing a list of specific, static instructions, Conficker reaches out to the web to receive updated marching orders via a huge list of websites it creates. Conficker.C -- the latest bad boy -- will start checking 50,000 different semi-randomly-generated sites a day looking for instructions, so there's no way to shut down all of them. If just one of those sites goes live with legitimate instructions, Conficker keeps on trucking.

Conficker's a nasty little worm that takes serious efforts to bypass your security defenses, but you aren't without some tools in your arsenal to protect yourself.

Your first step should be the tools you already have: Windows Update, to make sure your computer is fully patched, and your current antivirus software, to make sure anything that slips through the cracks is caught.
What won't work? Turning your PC off tonight and back on on April 2 will not protect you from the worm (sorry to the dozens of people who wrote me asking if this would do the trick). Temporarily disconnecting your computer from the web won't help if the malware is already on your machine -- it will simply activate once you connect again. Changing the date on your PC will likely have no helpful effect, either."

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Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Oh OH!!!!!!!

Yes, this has dominated our news for a day or so. I downloaded a program recommended by them to protect from this.

Which one did you down load?? My yahoo page suggested several, but also said some users may have problems,, Seeings that I have Vista I want to be sure to down load one that won't freeze My computer, as many programs do

Diane today on the "Today Show" they said to check for the worm to try to go to a security web site like "Symantec"--if you cannot you likely have the worm. the good news is if you can access any security web site you are ok and do not have the worm.

Thanks Carol!!!!!!!! Been doing some checking,, Sysmantic is Norton,, I have avg( avast) and I made sure every security Program I have is currently updated

How do people get these things???? Do they just download weird crap or what? We don't have any kind of anti-virus stuff on either of our computers and have never had a problem. My inlaws have a few different kind of anti-virus programs on their computers and are constantly getting weird things on their computers. What is the deal!?

I think you may have been lucky, Jenn. These often crawl around from computer to computer and look like maybe a friend sent you an email. When you open an email or an attachment, they got you.
So if someone sends you an email that says "Hey! I'm sending you some new family pics." and there's an attachment you click on the open icon and bang!
It can even come from your inlaws if the worm got to their address book. Or your best friend. Anyone already infected. Or a business you deal with. Then everyone in your address book is in danger too.

I used this one for my XP. But i looked and they have a beta version just for vista users. It is free.
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/center/whatsnew.htm

And snopes has this to say with a couple of links to fixes
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/conficker.asp

OMG, I have vomiting and diarrhea. I'm getting a fever and chills and am aching all over. My ears and nose are bleeding and my eyes are crusting closed. I think I've caught the Conflicker Worm virus from my computer!

I'M A NURSE. I'll SAVE YOU. Since you've already downloaded (yuck) maybe you should upload. I'll see if Cindy Roscoe will share her Beam and Pepsi with you.

Oh, it's Roscoe now is it, eh?

Cindy is a woman of mystery. She has many names.

A good virus scanner (Such as Avast!) and a once over from a security tool like Spybot Search and Destroy should keep you fine; just be sure everything is up to date, blah blah blah...