CONFICKER?!

[questionette]

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/132464

PROTECT YOUR COMPUTERS!!!

[questionette]

I kinda don't understand why this isn't serious business...? Perhaps it is how I phrased the title.

[Kazuko]

Well there is no real reason for it to be in serious business its like one of those dont open that one website if you get a random e-hallmark card
then again early april fools joke is pretty early

[questionette]

Is it an april fool's joke? Because I keep hearing about programs for precaution like the one Symantec released, and the warning to back up hard drives tonight...if you have a PC that is.  And if it is for real it will affect a lot of computers...

[PyronIkari]

Is it an april fool's joke? Because I keep hearing about programs for precaution like the one Symantec released, and the warning to back up hard drives tonight...if you have a PC that is.  And if it is for real it will affect a lot of computers...

... Why would it be in serious business? What is there to discuss about this subject?

"Worms and virus' are bad"

"Yup"

"I hope I don't get infected. I am up to date with my protection"

"Yup"

...

[otakuapprentice]

Part of me says its one huge April Fools' joke, yet part of me says otherwise.

Nevertheless, my computers not infected, but I'm still going to disconnect before midnight and wait for the news on it tomorrow.

[Kazuko]

I am usually auto disconnected when my laptop turns off cause whaoo college wireless

anyway Mizuki and I were talking about this and we both think its an april fools joke because a virus that could destroy the internet/put peoples computers out then it should have been done years ago.

[PyronIkari]

Well the Worm is actually real. There was big talk of it before. Whether or not this version is legit or not is up in the air. The announcement about the april 1st release of it was anonymous on the web via a proxy -> proxy x98327958327982735039842

In general i'm pretty smart about my computer, so I'm not worried at all, the people this usually targets are people that don't know better, or people that open stuff from friends/family that don't know better.

[Piccahoe]

hmm I wonder if this virus will affect leeeenax machines.  :o

[mDuo13]

hmm I wonder if this virus will affect leeeenax machines.  :o

No. It exploits a Windows vulnerability. It would have to be an entirely separate piece of software to affect Linux machines.

Also, so far, all Conficker has done is download upgrades to itself. Actually, that's one of the nasty parts of this worm - it "phones home" to upgrade itself.

I'm guessing it'll be used to run a botnet - that's a pretty lucrative endeavor these days, I hear. Hell, just being in control of 9 million computers can probably get you money even if you don't do anything with them.

[Runewitt]

NBC news report on Conficker

[Mordyan]

Conficker is a interesting critter. The current variant on an infected computer calls home to 500 websites from a list of 50,000 randomly every day. So the virus writers have to register a site from the list of 50,000 and then on a given day the infected computer has to connect to that site randomly. At which point it gets it's new payload. So the odds of it doing anything on any given infected computer is low. But because the are somewhere around 9 million infected computers they are still gonna end up with over 100,000+ controlled computers. I will be interested in seeing what the final payload will be.

I had to review our protection at the county government where I work. The patch that protects computers has been out since October 2008. So if you keep your version of Windows updated you will be fine. I read somewhere that they were only anticipating a 6% infection rate in North America.