I recieved a email from ITAN. They wewre concerned about how ths effects the Conflicker virus may do on 4/1/2009. They had several suggestions for preventing it. I had not heard about this but am severely PC challanged.
From ITAN:
Hello everyone,
We typically do not send warnings out about the various malware attacks floating around the internet, because there are so many, and they are all pretty equally bad, and should be guarded against.
However, there is a recent worm called "Conficker" which has infected millions of Windows computers, and is one of the most sophisticated pieces of malware ever to reach widespread infection. Conficker is set to do something on April 1, 2009, only a few days away. We realize it may seem like an April Fool's joke, and while no one is sure what it will do, there's certainly no harm in making sure all of your computers are not infected with it, and are otherwise secure.
This New York Times article goes into some of the proposed ideas for what Conficker might do on April 1.
If you're running Windows, please install and run Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool.
When you run it, you can select "Quick Scan," and it will check for Conficker and a few dozen other known issues. If you have time, you should also run the Full Scan.
Once it has completed and taken any necessary actions to clean any infections, we would recommend the following:
Make sure Windows Update is set to automatically check for and download patches for your system every day. You may even wish to set it to automatically install them.
Make sure your systems are protected by a firewall. Preferably a hardware firewall, such as those sold by Linksys, but at least a software firewall, which all modern operating systems now offer (but which you may need to enable).
Install anti-virus software, and make sure it's regularly updating itself to get the latest malware signatures.
Install and run Secunia PSI, which is a piece of software that can scan all of your installed third-party programs, and let you know if any are out-of-date, insecure, or unsupported. It also provides links to download any necessary updates for the software. This is the only tool we are aware of that has this capability -- and many times, third party applications are not being updated, even though they contain serious security risks.
If you're still using IE 6, please consider updating your browser to at least IE7, if not IE8. You may also wish to try Mozilla Firefox, a popular browser that has a good security track record.
Although Mac OS and Linux aren't affected by this worm, users of these operating systems must remain vigilant against security threats as well. For Mac OS, please make sure you have Software Update set to run weekly, if not daily. Most Linux distributions offer ways to perform similar routine updates of the installed software.
If you wish to discuss this and other security issues further, you may want to participate in our PC Users Forum.
Best Regards,
The iATN Staff
