Heads up--potentially nasty little worm infestation to be aware of

[dogemperor]

On April 1, a new version of the worm/botnet Conficker (specifically Conficker.C) is supposed to deliver its "payload" (which includes downloads of instructions from upwards of 50,000 registered domains and measures to lock down the worm against attempts at detection and removal

Comments

[narumi]

dude Fer you beat me to the punch on this one- as I just saw the report on ABC news.
thank GOD I have the norton 360 up to date and firewalls up - still better safe then sorry!

[helen99]

Thanks for the tip. When I looked at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343838,00.asp, though, I couldn't find an easy way to turn off Autoplay for Vista Home Premium (what I have on my laptop) except a registry edit, but here is a relatively simple way to turn off Autoplay in that version in case people don't want to deal with the registry editor:

Choose Start --> Control Panel --> Default Programs --> Change AutoPlay Settings.

Click off the checkbox next to "Use Autoplay for all media and devices" (it's at the top of the dialog box).

[kisekileia]

Do you know whether the virus affects Macs? *hugs her brand new one*

[dogemperor]

Macintoshen--and for that matter, non-Windows NT family operating systems in general--are safe for now.

So Linux/Mac/WinMobile/Palm/WebOS/iPhone/Crackberry/Android/Symbian/(insert your favourite non Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/Server 2008/Seven OS here) users needn't worry for now. (Mind, as other OS's get more popular, don't be shocked to see worm writers start targeting them as well--though most other common OS's have shortcomings for use in spamfarm botnets compared to Windows with its combination of (out of the box) poor security and wide availability. Symbian-based phones are targeted for much the same reason as Windows boxes for viruses and worms--outside of North America, Nokia's SymbianOS is probably the most popular portable device OS in the world.)

[kisekileia]

That's good to know, as I have a Mac and a Blackberry :).

[saturninesun]

Thank you *very* much! Us computer-illiterates can use this especially!

By the way, do you have any recommendations for us? Our computer has been off, sitting in our apartment for about two months now, and we'll probably return to it the weekend after this one. It's got Windows Vista and no anti virus software; since we fail at everything it's pretty much in the condition we got it in, security-software-wise. Is it likely to just be safe while it's off and all this is going around, or should we do anything particular when we turn it on?

[dogemperor]

Once the Vista box is turned on again, what I'd recommend (because this is pretty much what I do "out of the box"):

a) Immediately install strong antivirus, anti-spyware, and firewall software (if you aren't using a router with a built-in firewall, that is). My personal prefs are Avira or Avast! Home edition for the antivirus, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Spybot S&D for the antispyware (I usually do keep two on the system, because some antispyware progs pick up things that others don't), and as for firewalls, either ZoneAlarm free edition or Comodo Personal Firewall free edition (I tend to lean towards Comodo myself; you can get it hereIf you're REALLY paranoid, one thing I can recommend is burning these on a CD (before you leave for Germany) and running them on the home computer when it's not hooked up to the Internet. It's probably not necessary to be THAT paranoid, though, and if you're able to get to the antivirus vendor sites in particular it's a good indication you aren't infected with Conficker

[saturninesun]

Thank you *so* much!
I'm on DSL and have a router, so that keeps some stuff out I think, and I also think there's a firewall of sorts, and Vista does the thing where it's annoying about every program and "Are you *really* sure you want to execute it?", which I'm grateful for in times as these.