There is no need to panic. The world is not coming to an end! Probably... ;)

Hey, folks,

Since I'm in the field, I'm in receipt of a couple PM inquiries concerning the conficker worm. You know who you are!

Anyway, conficker is a worm, and some of us have it on our machines. It's scheduled to misbehave in some uncertain way tomorrow, doing all sorts of nefarious and disreputable things that would make Snidely Whiplash smile and Dudley DoRight cringe. Instead of answering the PMs, I'm answering here, since it's likely a good idea to get word out. If you don't hear from people tomorrow, it's likely they didn't fall off the edge of the earth, they just got wormed!

Here's a decent link on the subject:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/157876/protecting_against_the_rampant_conficker_worm.html

Here's another:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gyP5ygt_hS_RJ51QV2a5k10wK9mQD9793VCO0

and if you're into that sort of thing, here's a map of worldwide infections:

http://www.team-cymru.org/Monitoring/Malevolence/conficker.html

Note that it may as well be a map of the electrical grid, or of developed population centers.

Free removal tool here:

http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/conficker.html

Here's a link to the direct download: http://vil.nai.com/vil/conficker_stinger/Stinger_Coficker.exe (note: clicking that link will launch an .exe directly from McAfee)

Now, if your system is patched, there are likely no worries. Please note: the world is not ending. You're probably fine. Just run the tools, make sure you're patched, and life is good!

Thanks,

Bill

Thanks Bill

Bill, should we run the removal tools no mater if we feel we have been infected or not?

Tom

for those who haven't heard of kaspersky do a google search about this worm and kaspersky.
i`ve been a customer of theirs since i first learned how to turn on a 'puter.
no complaints.

Well - OK - but ya made me panic

So now what happens - we go to bed then there's no tomorrow?

Well, since my internet computer is a shell of a system and is only used for internet access, I was playing around the past couple of days with it.

My real home work computer is not connected to the internet. Never has, never will be, ever, end of story. Never had to update anything on it, for the past five years and have never had a problem. As one would expect.

Sunday night I set the date on my internet computer to April 1. Last night I reset it again to April 1. and tonight will set it to April 1.

Went to the Microsoft website and downloaded the latest malicious tool removal/checker and it spent an hour and fifteen minutes probing around and came up clean. Looks like I should be ok.

Rob

I ran Bill's fix. Came up clean. Wonder if I should reset the clock to next Saturday?