April Fools day virus

[Zal]

"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."

Basically CNN downgraded this virus by... well, a ton. So far it hasn't recieved any commands to "attack" yet but the least it will most likely do is wipe all files on your computer. This virus is constantly recieving updates to stay a head of the virus detection software so much so that Microsoft has a $250,000 bounty to catch who started it. Read more on the virus here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/c...orm/index.html. But as I said, CNN downgraded what this thing is really capable of.

Hope your not infected.

[Tasty]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/conficker.computer.worm/index.html[/url]. But as I said, CNN downgraded what this thing is really capable of.

Hope your not infected.

Everyones going nuts at work lol. Been getting emails the last three days. "PATCH THE SERVERS" "DISABLE THE AUTORUN" :|

[jettzypher]

guess its a good thing i shut off my computer before comin to work...shall see what happens when i boot her up tomorrow when i get home...

[Zal]

guess its a good thing i shut off my computer before comin to work...shall see what happens when i boot her up tomorrow when i get home...

doesn't matter if your computers on or off.

[Hachoo]

Whenever I see threads/info about these viruses I always chuckle on the inside and then reflect on how glad I am I don't ever have to work with Windows. (I'm a Sr. Unix/SAN Admin).

[jettzypher]

kinda hard for a virus to get onto a computer when its shut off and disconnected from everything....dur

[Frosty]

kinda hard for a virus to get onto a computer when its shut off and disconnected from everything....dur

I heard when you turn your computer off the virus kicks your dog and drinks milk right ouf the carton. 8o

[Hellraiser]

I heard when you turn your computer off the virus kicks your dog and drinks milk right ouf the carton.

Damn you Frosty. That one made me laugh all over place. Now I'm in trouble since my boss realized, what I'm doing all day long on the internet.

[Kissell13]

kinda hard for a virus to get onto a computer when its shut off and disconnected from everything....dur

The idea of this thing is that they have already infected tons of pc's. The code or whatever is set to execute on/after April 1. So if you were infected but shut off it would just run when u booted again.

[Taliesin]

/nerd hat on
Technically, its not really a virus, but a worm that appears to have the intended purpose of creating a botnet by the hacker.
/nerd hat off

If true, they are less likely to try damaging your machine at all beyond trying to prevent you from finding or removing it. Botnets are increasingly used to make money for the hacker, and they don't make money if your machine doesn't work. They are typically (not always) used for spamming, brute-force attacking other systems (dictionary attacks, for example), or other purposes that benefit from having multiple machines under their control.

When they say that all these copies become "active" on April 1, all that means is they are all now trying to phone home (the hacker) to request instructions on what to do next. They basically sit there doing nothing but saying "awaiting instructions...". The hacker can now send out whatever commands he wants to these machines when they like.

EDIT: You can read up some more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet, where they even have a chart that shows Conficker's stats compared to other known botnets. Keep in mind that all versions of Conficker (a, b, and c) are all considered part of the same structure.