Another reminder that despite all the antivirus software out there, we are still at risk, is news of a sophisticated malware attack on the horizon. The Conficker worm, scheduled to deploy on April 1st (April Fools’ Day) is supposedly able to infect 50,000 computers a day. Microsoft is so worried that they’re offering a $250,000 reward to anyone who can tell them the author of the new malware. The lack of knowledge about how Conflicker will launch is more worrisome than what it will do. It’s apparently scheduled to “phone home” on 1-April-2009 for instructions – that is, it will start to contact the 50,000+ Web servers to which it has access. Until then, it sits dormant on an estimated 10 million computers.
According to Microsoft if your antivirus protection is up to date, you should be able to defend against most versions of the Conficker worm, also known as Downadup, but it can also infect via USB ports so users are advised to take care when accessing flash drives. Clearly, malware is not going away and neither are computer and network vulnerabilities. Keeping antivirus software updated is key but so is using multi-layered antivirus solutions on corporate networks. Does your Internet filter have an antivirus feature that is updated frequently? Don’t wait to see if Conflicker will be cruel an April Fools Joke, make sure you’re up to date now.
Update: Microsoft is keeping a blog up to date on this subject at the following URL:
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2009/03/27/update-on-conficker-d.aspx
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