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April Fool's day attack is no joke
Fri 27 Mar 2009 01:55:54 PM UTC — Deborah S.
Friends of WOT have been sounding the alarm of the impending April Fool's day Conficker C attack. Frank J at TechJaws, Colin at Free PC Security and Corrine at Security Garden all have detailed information on the third variant of the malicious worm.
The bottom line is to make sure you have all your Windows-based PCs patched with the latest security updates and your antivirus software updated. Do it now, because as our friends point out when April 1 arrives in China, it will be high noon March 31 in New York.
Join the discussion of on our forum.
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Waiting
Now we sit and wait to find out how widespread this worm is and what damage it will be doing. Whatever it does, it certainly won't be an April Fool's Day joke!
Colin
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk
France
Supposedly it grounded the ENTIRE French and UK air force because of infected computers.
Another read
Please also read F-Secure's blog on this.
Conficker
Thanks, Deborah. WOT has lots of friends -- for good reason. Keep up the great work.
As to Conficker, the security experts really don't know what to expect. In addition to security updates, turn off autorun and file sharing. I posted an update just for home computer users like us: Conficker Information for the Home Computer User
Keep your system updated!
Make sure as indicated that your computer has the latest patches and that your antivirus definitions are updated.
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Frank J
www.techjaws.com
Stumbled/Reviewed and shared
Stumbled/Reviewed and shared to get the word out.
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Frank J
www.techjaws.com
New Good News For Me
Hi All,
Thanks for the great news about the impending April Fool's day Conficker C attack. I registered today at WOT and this is the first news that I heard about the attack.
Welcome
Welcome to WOT!
this is totally irrelevant to the subject?
You'll Never Walk Alone
::WOT Gold member::
Newbie here too saying "Thanks"!
I too just signed up with "WOT", and hadn't heard anything about this issue either. Thanks again, and I'm going to take my time to read everything here so I can become a contributing member in any way that I can!
More info here
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/27/60minute...
Looks like a big advertising opportunity for Symantec...
I am already prepared...
As soon as I heard about this April Fools threat, as in previous years, from Alwil Software, from whom I have bought the Avast! antivirus, I started really taking care about securing my computer and avoiding malicious websites. Luckily, WOT helps me a lot with the second one!
Computer Protection... is my destiny... ~MetaKnight quote XD
Sooooooo...
On april will be full of viruses?
@ emilian1995
Not necessarily :-)
For the majority of users who have installed the MS patches and updated their security software there should be little or no impact.
The danger lies in unpatched machines / networks that are infected and it is those that will receive the 'instructions'. Where this leads, no one yet knows but it is not a one day event, it is expected to continue for a few weeks as instructions are sent to infected computers to create a massive 'bot army'
Beyond that, there is always the daily threat of malware that exists so performing routine upgrades and installing patches is a necessity.
Colin
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk
Patch everything
We currently don't know the full potential of the Conficker C virus, better update everything. That includes: Secunia PSI, Windows Update, FileHippo.com. Avoid ALL vulnerabilities.
Also, make sure to have:
An active antivirus
A firewall
A proactive protection software
I also heard it does not infect Vista, but just in case, secure yourself.
Just MyWOT and SpywareBlaster, I guess... Found a malicious or fraudulent website? Rate it at WOT ASAP! Found a game hacker? Report it to the game's anti-cheat team! Infected with a virus? Delete it with an antivirus =P
confussed
how does this wot thing work i installed it but i dont no what else i need to do or how it works
Re: confused
You may want to start by watching the tutorial videos on the Support section.
Another
Another video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTq0ZoNB69Q
Every little helps :-)
Colin
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk
Questions here
Why is it that new users always seem to ask questions in the comments section?
We rate the websites, the WOT staff creates, and advertises the add-on, and together, we make it all happen.
Lurve it!
With the WOT add on,on my mozilla firefox,I feel MUCH MORE PROTECTED AND COMFORTABLE SURFING THE NET,I registered 2 days ago and will be looking forward to the outgoing reliability of this program,MORE POWER.
got any new news on this
got any new news on this "worm" thing?
Only that
Only that it's now active but no commands have been sent as far as anyone knows.
Many users have been hit with it and are frantically seeking cures but there is no easy cure at the moment.
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/ is a good source
Colin
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk
Conficer C
Please, tell me how to defend this worm.
@ Rizwan Ahmed
Welcome to WOT.
Microsoft released a patch in October, if not installed go here
And here you will find a list of removal methods:
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk/2009/03/26/conficker-c...
Colin
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk
Worms,virus's,hackers,scammers!!
It is a pity that some people get their kicks from malicious acts of terror on honest normal citizens who use the computor for relaxation and keeping in touch with friends.These persons should face at least life in a very dark place. Hopefully this latest worm will be dissected before it can do too much damage.
A joke?maybe but don't take any chances!
i heard about the threat of the new variant of the conficker worm...but after the april 1st i did not notice any referancies to the virus or any damage dealt by it on the newspapers or the news.so was it a true threat or just a joke?
experts say that hackers no longer wish to pose their abilities by damaging or destroying networks and computers.. instead the new age viruses mostly target computers in order to take control of them and sell the information they can dig out in high prices.
that's why they never believed that a major attack would occure on april 1st.a major attack with a virus so sophisticated as the conficker worm would criple the network
thus rendering the information the hackers possesed unimportant to their buyers who depend onthe internet.
never the less i did not connect to the internet at all that day.
such destructive viruses are not to mess with.
or as the avg website says:precaution is better than cure
@ who cares
Certainly no joke, go to http://www.mywot.com/en/poll/3004-what-did-you-do-... for further details.
Colin
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk
actually i understood that
actually i understood that it propably wasn't a joke(that's why i stayed offline)
i'm just passing on to the rest what i heard
thanks for the respond anyway!
by the way do you (or anyone else)know what websites did they target?
i mean did they only use their one websites? or did they try to "poison" legal websites as well? can the last windows patch provide protection against the new variant? any answer will be greately apreciated!
@ who cares
At the moment they have not targeted any sites as such, just the command being sent out April 1 for the worm to modify itself.
Further commands are expected over the coming weeks and it could be a while before we know what the purpose is.
Map of infection:
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001646.h...
The October patch and subsequent updates when applied would protect users, it is those who did not apply the patch that are at risk. All we can do is continue to monitor and see what it does next.
Colin
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk
infection first
first...
you must be infected with conficker for it to transform and mutate.
if you're not infected, you have no worries.
read more here (and if you can read the blog - you're not infected)
to quote:
If you’ve been reading any news at all on the Internet in the past week, you’ve probably heard that Conficker Armageddon is approaching, and it’s scheduled for April 1st, only a few days from now. The SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit has been receiving an increasing number of inquiries asking what one needs to do to prepare for the impending April 1st outbreak.
The truth is, there will be no April 1st outbreak, despite what some of the press stories have said so far. The only thing that will happen with Conficker on April 1st is that already-infected systems will begin to use a new algorithm to locate potential update servers. There, that’s not so scary, is it?
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Against Intuition - gives us safety through Web of Trust.
WOT Community - gives us security through unity.
Thank you all
G7W {G.O.M}
http://g7w.net/