A report on Conficker by Editorial Director Pastore

On Tuesday, March 31st Adelphi University’s Information Technology department sent out a priority email to the university’s faculty, staff, and students about a dangerous, computer crippling worm known as “Conficker”.

Being a tech I'm a amazed I never heard about the worm, but apparently it has been around since last October when Microsoft sent out a patch for it’s Windows XP, and Vista operating systems that would fix a hole in the security protocol. I.T. advised in their email for users to use caution when surfing the internet, and to not open any email that users did not find familiar.

After some research, it was proven it would in fact be launched on April Fool’s Day. From the different media outlets such as PC Magazine, CNN, and New York Times I had found that Conficker was created by an anonymous programmer and was sent out to infect computers, and lie in wait until April 1st. The worm spreads via email, flash drives, and web sites. What happens after it infiltrates a computer is that it awaits further commands. What some specialists believe is that if people did not update their computers with said patch, then the worm is able to exploit that hole in Windows’ security and the creator of the worm then can take over the computer, and use it to further his means and at the sometime steal valuable information from the user.

The problem is that Conficker is not a worm to make itself known to the users of infected computers. Like most viruses, trojans, and worms it runs in the background covertly wreaking havoc on the system. While information is still limited on what exactly the worm does, measures have been taken and discovered on how to combat the worm, and eradicate it from a computer.

The first and most important way is to make sure that your anti-virus software, and anti-spyware/anti-malware software are completely up to date. Most anti-viral and anti-spyware softwares will include certain Windows updates with their own updates. However I would not recommend taking any chances and make sure you have the security patch that Microsoft released last October. The patch as I said before is available for Windows XP and Windows Vista. How you can if you have it or not is by going into Control Panel, and going to Automatic Updates and looking at the history of the updates your computer has received. The code number for the security update is 958644 and was released October 22nd, 2008. You can download the patch from here however since it was released for multiple Windows Operating systems, and their respective Service Packs you have to make sure you download the right one. How this is done is by right clicking on My Computer, and left clicking properties. What is displayed is your computer’s information, including the service pack that is currently installed. Now that you have this information you can download the appropriate patch.

However while this “plugs up” the security hole, I highly recommend running a full virus scan, and spyware scan to completely ensure your system is clean.

For any other information regarding Conficker you can check out most media outlets, as they will be covering it. Also for Adelphi Students if you are having issues installing the patch, or properly protecting your computer you can contact I.T. at 516.877.3340
(EXT 3340 from any campus phone).
Also feel free to email me at pawsradio@adelphi.edu for any more info on Conficker