April 1st - Conficker Worm Set to Assault the Internet

The Conficker worm, also known as downadup and kido, has been roaming the internet for a while now. The latest version, Conficker C, has people in a bit of an uproar because once the system date on a PC rolls over to April 1, 2009 it is set to launch a massive denial of service attack. With potentially millions of infected machines the results could be devastating. What does all of this have to do with the citizens of The Empire? Read on to find out.

In addition to the most common names I listed above the Conficker worm also goes by the following less trendy aliases:

• * Worm:Win32/Conficker.A (Microsoft)
• * Crypt.AVL (AVG)
• * Mal/Conficker-A (Sophos)
• * Trojan.Win32.Pakes.lxf (F-Secure)
• * Trojan.Win32.Pakes.lxf (Kaspersky)
• * W32.Downadup (Symantec)
• * Worm:Win32/Conficker.B (Microsoft)
• * WORM_DOWNAD.A (Trend Micro)

To be sure that you DON’T become one of the millions of infected PCs come April 1st you should follow these steps:

1. Run ESET,  Kaspersky, or Panda AV. Make sure it is completely updated.
2. Run SuperAntiSpyware or MalWareBytes AntiMalware, make sure it is fully updated.
3. Make sure your system is fully up to date with Windows Update.

Now you can sit back and relax, hoping that the millions of other people on the planet ALSO read The Tech Empire and will follow these three blindingly easy steps to avoid becoming a teeming mass of botnet come April 1.

Of course, if you’ve been sitting around unprotected you might already be infected. If you think that might be the case you can use McAfee’s Stinger to remove the Conficker infection, then follow the above steps.