PositiveKarma
Jr Member
Conficker. A blend of the words 'Configuration' and 'F****r'. Basically put, your configurations are f****d.
From CNN:
"(CNN) -- A computer-science detective story is playing out on the Internet as security experts try to hunt down a worm called Conficker C and prevent it from damaging millions of computers on April Fool's Day.
The anti-worm researchers have banded together in a group they call the Conficker Cabal. Members are searching for the malicious software program's author and for ways to do damage control if he or she can't be stopped.
They're motivated in part by a $250,000 bounty from Microsoft and also by what seems to be a sort of Dick Tracy ethic. "We love catching bad guys," said Alvin Estevez, CEO of Enigma Software Group, which is one of many companies trying to crack Conficker. "We're like former hackers who like to catch other hackers. To us, we get almost a feather in our cap to be able to knock out that worm. We slap each other five when we're killing those infections. The malicious program already is thought to have infected between 5 million and 10 million computers.
Those infections haven't spawned many symptoms, but on April 1 a master computer is scheduled to gain control of these zombie machines, said Don DeBolt, director of threat research for CA, a New York-based IT and software company. What happens on April Fool's Day is anyone's guess."
There is a ton of info on this bad boy available, but since most of you won't click on a link that I provide, I'm not going to provide any. Do your due diligence on this one folks. It's serious and carries the capacity to do more damage than the Slammer virus of five years ago.
Those of you that believe Snopes is the end all of authenticity do your search there. Others, use whatever search engine you like.
Update your AV software, download and install all of the available patches, updates and service packs for whatever Windows OS you are running, and hang on.
If Conficker C is set to trigger a system already hosting Conficker B at a certain time on a certain date, it will. If that system is powered down prior to the trigger time the trigger will launch as soon as that system is powered back up.
If your system is unprotected or only mildly protected and far behind in security updates then that system is vulnerable to this sort of attack.
When Slammer hit some years back there were a lot of companies that found themselves needing to flatten and reload a lot of systems. Not to pound on my own chest, but not one of our regular clients were affected. I don't expect that any of our clients will be affected by this one either.
But a lot of the humans here seem to get their fair share of viruses and malware, on a pretty regular basis. Most of you are not on supported, protected corporate networks so I thought I would bring this info up.
I'm not trying to say that the sky is falling or that nukes are in flight heading for a town near you, but it seemed sensible to try and give my 'other' family a heads up.
Hell, even if you do end up being affected by this, you probably won't even notice. Might be a few new 'options' when you connect a USB thumb drive to your computer, or go to your favorite P2P site, but it's not likely that your system will crash or all of the data will disappear. No money in that for the hackers.
It's going to get bumpy.
Best regards,
Mike
From CNN:
"(CNN) -- A computer-science detective story is playing out on the Internet as security experts try to hunt down a worm called Conficker C and prevent it from damaging millions of computers on April Fool's Day.
The anti-worm researchers have banded together in a group they call the Conficker Cabal. Members are searching for the malicious software program's author and for ways to do damage control if he or she can't be stopped.
They're motivated in part by a $250,000 bounty from Microsoft and also by what seems to be a sort of Dick Tracy ethic. "We love catching bad guys," said Alvin Estevez, CEO of Enigma Software Group, which is one of many companies trying to crack Conficker. "We're like former hackers who like to catch other hackers. To us, we get almost a feather in our cap to be able to knock out that worm. We slap each other five when we're killing those infections. The malicious program already is thought to have infected between 5 million and 10 million computers.
Those infections haven't spawned many symptoms, but on April 1 a master computer is scheduled to gain control of these zombie machines, said Don DeBolt, director of threat research for CA, a New York-based IT and software company. What happens on April Fool's Day is anyone's guess."
There is a ton of info on this bad boy available, but since most of you won't click on a link that I provide, I'm not going to provide any. Do your due diligence on this one folks. It's serious and carries the capacity to do more damage than the Slammer virus of five years ago.
Those of you that believe Snopes is the end all of authenticity do your search there. Others, use whatever search engine you like.
Update your AV software, download and install all of the available patches, updates and service packs for whatever Windows OS you are running, and hang on.
If Conficker C is set to trigger a system already hosting Conficker B at a certain time on a certain date, it will. If that system is powered down prior to the trigger time the trigger will launch as soon as that system is powered back up.
If your system is unprotected or only mildly protected and far behind in security updates then that system is vulnerable to this sort of attack.
When Slammer hit some years back there were a lot of companies that found themselves needing to flatten and reload a lot of systems. Not to pound on my own chest, but not one of our regular clients were affected. I don't expect that any of our clients will be affected by this one either.
But a lot of the humans here seem to get their fair share of viruses and malware, on a pretty regular basis. Most of you are not on supported, protected corporate networks so I thought I would bring this info up.
I'm not trying to say that the sky is falling or that nukes are in flight heading for a town near you, but it seemed sensible to try and give my 'other' family a heads up.
Hell, even if you do end up being affected by this, you probably won't even notice. Might be a few new 'options' when you connect a USB thumb drive to your computer, or go to your favorite P2P site, but it's not likely that your system will crash or all of the data will disappear. No money in that for the hackers.
It's going to get bumpy.
Best regards,
Mike
