are you ready for the rabid virus?

Conficker? aka W32.Downadup.x

Well the media hype has been going for the last few days. I was going through my Google Reader feeds as I usually do and I saw continual stuff about the Conficker.C virus.

The NY Times, Vancouver Sun, CNET, BBC, oh and my favourite one: CBS’s 60 Minutes which was recovered by CNET, have been commenting on this virus and as usual, media attention is probably blowing this out of proportion. We really won’t know until Wednesday, April 1st, 2009. Maybe it’ll be one giagantic April fools joke. This is all very unlikely as the botnet and hacking networks are capable of making lots of revenue.

Are you protected?

For most virus scanners, as long as they are updated, they should be able to offer more safety from those who have no anti-virus tools.
The big key is to make sure you have the latest Windows OS Updates, and more specificall,y Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 – Critical.
That patch was released in Oct last year so there shouldn’t be any excuses!

This virus is likely to affect corporate users who’s IT admins use group policies to disable auto-updates.

For the nerds…

Have some fun reading these science-report like documents:

http://mtc.sri.com/Conficker/ <— this one is ridiculous…and no, I did not read it. I just linked it! There are also 3 addendum.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962007

For everyone else…
Sit back, relax and watch the news!

I should mention that I am working during the afternoon shift at the CCS HelpDesk on Wednesday. I’m expecting a regular shift of university students who lose their essay due to stupidity and the usual, “where is the washroom/how do i scan/how do i print” questions.

PS: The 60 minutes interview was very amusing!

More links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10204590-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/03/canadian-ca-domain-prepares-united-confickerc-defense.ars
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090326.wworm0326/BNStory/Technology/home

2 thoughts on “are you ready for the rabid virus?”

  1. Yup, Conflicker is very over hyped, and the problem is, it drives attention away from the real issue… LOTS of unpatched computers.

    I don’t really care much for the people using a pirated version of Windows (Who could actually get security updates if they wanted, and from Windows Update too!), but it amazes me, how many people aren’t keeping their computers updated, when it’s SO easy. Just enable auto update on every piece of software installed, and forget about patching.

    So people who got infected has no one but themselfs to blame, and still I bet they blame Microsoft, for making buggy software, instead of considering the fact, that a patch for the bug was released about a month before the first version of Conflicker.A was discovered.

    It’s so easy to stay out of most computer troubles, and still so many fails to do it.

  2. Happy Monday! excellent insight,. Enjoyed “ready for the rabid virus? | hestonk.com” although maybe not everyone did. This has been a great read and a help; especially in the current economic climate. Added you to my feed reader.

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