Update your Patches, Clean your Machine

[Anynym]

The buzz is growing about the "Conficker C" virus which has been spreading for a while now.

This virus will change its behaviour on April 1 of this year, attempting to contact any of an unknown number of "rendezvous" sites to obtain a code update, which it will share with other infected machines.

It has been designed to overcome attempts to block it, including multiple redundancies to determine the date and time, and randomization to find the first "rendezvous" site (basically, a random URL).

The best defense will be to ensure your machines are not infected before April 1, by applying all necessary patches and removing any current viruses (including especially Conficker C) from your machines.

There is a lot of information available by searching; one site is from Public Safety Canada.

 

[toughb]

Norton has a critical update available now...

 

[1HandInMyPocket]

would it matter if we didn't use or turn on our computer (if possible) at all on apr 1?

 

[Disturbia]

would it matter if we didn't use or turn on our computer (if possible) at all on apr 1?

It depends if your machine has already been infected and whether the virus would continue its operation after the dead line, April 1st.

I would suggest you update your PC with all the latest Windows updates as well as your antivirus program and any other similar tools you might have.

 

[drlove]

So what is the worm supposed to do once it becomes active on April 1st??

 

[Anynym]

So what is the worm supposed to do once it becomes active on April 1st??

It will search for, download and execute a new executable.

That new executable could be part of a distributed denial-of-service attack. It could be a spam generator. It could be something to help you with your laundry.

The betting is that the people who went to all the effort to put together such a huge botnet don't have good things in mind.

Simply not turning on your computer on April 1 may help (depending on what the new executable does), but if your machine is infected then whenever you do turn it back on, the Conficker C virus will become active.