http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/128643/beware-conficker-worm-come-april-1/

Quote :

"Beware Conficker worm come April 1 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. Microsoft also offers a free online safety scan here, which should be able to detect all Conficker versions. "

Oh snap!

3/26/2009 11:20:09 AM

lol

3/26/2009 11:23:08 AM

lol

3/26/2009 11:29:02 AM

yeah i read about that yesterday on yahoo and wired. Apparently the concensus for most people is skynet, proof of god, the answer to the world and all things, or a massive p2p server(which would be awesome).

Realistically I'm betting on spam mailer... or end of existence, I'm ok with either at this point as long as no one I know asks me to fix there's if it blows away their system.

3/26/2009 11:41:44 AM

Quote :

"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"

how exactly would finding the writer help Microsoft? is there some sort of torture facility in Redmond?

3/26/2009 11:32:43 PM

he could go to prison, never, ever be allowed to touch a computer again... etc.

[Edited on March 27, 2009 at 12:33 AM. Reason : ]

3/27/2009 12:33:03 AM

they'd probably hire him

3/27/2009 12:47:39 AM

Viruses that specifically attack Windows are bad for Microsoft's business

3/27/2009 10:42:03 AM

do macs have a vulnerability to conficker?

3/27/2009 11:05:06 AM

^^ More at 11.

3/27/2009 11:21:37 AM

This thing has gotten massively over-hyped in the media. Read http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001636.html for a more realistic perspective.

3/27/2009 7:31:04 PM

3/30/2009 4:17:15 PM

so is this april fools?

3/30/2009 4:54:53 PM

oh my god less than 12 hours before we all die

3/31/2009 1:59:01 PM

Is there a definitive way to know if you have the worm?

I thought this was more of a commercial issue, not personal computer.

3/31/2009 4:50:02 PM

a quarter million dollars is such a joke.

come on

3/31/2009 6:15:24 PM

ive heard you can try accessing sites for updates like microsoft, symantec, etc. since one of the things it does is keeps you from retreiving updates. but then again, im no expert

3/31/2009 6:25:27 PM

If i was the conficker guy I'd make it goatse everyone on april 1.

3/31/2009 7:05:05 PM

I would have 20 million computers mass email all of the pharmacys, viagras, herbal remedies and Nigerian princes of the world.

3/31/2009 9:10:50 PM

http://vil.nai.com/vil/averttools.aspx

+

MS Windows update

3/31/2009 9:12:17 PM

Quote :

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT"

3/31/2009 11:09:03 PM

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5860

3/31/2009 11:56:11 PM

so am i safe yet?

4/1/2009 12:06:48 AM

Use this link to detect if you have an infection or not:

http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html

4/2/2009 1:45:06 PM

Rickrolling bastard

4/2/2009 10:18:35 PM

If you can't see the above three images, you have a high probability of conficker infection

4/2/2009 10:22:03 PM

yawn

4/2/2009 10:39:42 PM