youLOVE: the April 1st Conficker virus

No, this is by no means an April Fool's joke, and unless we're all being played on then the joke's on Norton.  It appears the scariest thing about the Conficker virus is that although they've figured out what the code is capable of (taking over a huge number of computers) they don't know what the ultimate plan is - what would a virus need to take control over that many computers for?  

For all the PC people, it appears the virus, in addition to setting up spambots and phishing capabilities, will actually block your access to most security sites, so if you're able to visit Norton then you're probably OK and may as well d-load the patch just in case.  However, if you don't have Norton installed, the good folks there have suggested installing the trial version of their anti-virus software and the patch so you can fix your machine.  If your machine is already infected you will need to use a clean computer to get the upload.  And, if you are unable to get on a clean machine, you can email me at hope dot walls at shaw dot ca and I will email both the trial download and the patch to you to install.  Be warned though - the patch is little, but the Norton software is over 60MB so you'll need to make sure you can receive files that big.

Here's the link to the Norton site in longhand so you can see it's not a link to a joke or anything - copy paste it into your browser window to get there: 
http://www.symantec.com/norton/theme.jsp?themeid=conficker_worm&inid=us_ghp_promo_conficker_worm

If you want to read more about the virus, again in longhand, here is ABC's coverage from March 31st: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7218673&page=1

Here's hoping the only April Fool's jokes your experience include large quantities of styrofoam peanuts.

Comments

Carol Kerfoot said…
hey just wanted to say thank you for this.

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