I’m on the Andy Bumatai show discussing the Conficker/Downadout worm

by billso on Tuesday, 24 March 2009

I’ll be on the Andy Bumatai Show today at 1 PM Hawaii time. That’s 7 PM for the East Coast, and 4 PM on the West Coast. It’s a live webcast, and the segment will be posted on his site and on YouTube later.

We’ll be talking about the Conficker/Downadout worm that is scheduled to do something interesting on 1 April 2009. No one quite knows what will happen, but Microsoft believes that up to 30% of Windows computers are vulnerable to this attack.

If you haven’t run Windows Update lately or updated your antivirus software, you may be at risk. Recent versions of this worm actually try to block these updates while turning the computer into a zombie or bot server. Over time, you’ll notice that your computer is running slower, and you’ll never realize that your files might be getting shared or uploaded to someone else’s server. Microsoft suggests opening an alternate update site (http://safety.live.com) in Internet Explorer if Windows Update doesn’t load.

If you have a Mac or you don’t use Windows on your computer, you’ll probably be fine. It never hurts to be careful, though. Residential users can change the DNS settings on their computer and router to access OpenDNS, a free service that is blocking this worm. Check my OpenDNS articles below for details on this 5-minute fix.

Windows servers are also affected by this worm, so many companies, governments, universities and other organizations are scaling up their efforts to patch their servers. People who use a computer at their office or school should check with their IT staff, especially if they use a USB stick to transfer files between computers.

These articles have some excellent background information.