Computer Viruses & the Conficker Worm - 3 Steps You Must Take

CNN is reporting Cyber Crime is up 33% over last year. Most of this crime is related towards trying to sell us Malware software and some to just plain disrupt the information stream. Twitter, being one of the most recent large social networks to have been infiltrated, affecting CNN's Rick Sanchez's account, Barack Obama's and Britney Spears just to name a few, where hackers were able to use their passwords and post harmful disinformation.

Worms seem to be the marked threat from the recent Sasser and Blaster worms to the top virus threats reported today being the Trojan, the Conficker and the Trojan Downloader.

For those of you who do not know what a worm is it's a software program designed, by not so nice people, to duplicate itself from one computer to another causing clogs, long waits, computer shutdowns, LSA shell crashes, denial of service on some server sites, error messages, keystroke tracking and all sorts of wonderful irritants in the world of computing.

The newest, most talked about virus, is the Conficker. A computer worm which can infect your computer as well as computers connected across a network, transfers made via USB's and shared filing. There are reported to be 2 variants to this worm.

The new Conficker Virus is one you should take seriously because it's one of the scariest and very nasty. The Conficker is located deep in your computer placed to inflict mayhem and destruction with your hardware drive reported to be able to disable between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 computers on April 1st. It can disable important services on your computer as well as record keystrokes to gain private and personal information.

Bill Gates has offered a $250,000 reward for finding the culprits however this does not do you a world of good. The worm is purportedly capable of monitoring your keystrokes which means access to your private information, banking, email accounts and any other accounts you have which are password protected. This is seriously not good. Make sure you have your updates!

Who is vulnerable? The most vulnerable are the large grouped networks, those people who have weak passwords, computers without the latest security updates, computers with open sharing and people who use USB, External Hard Drives, or any other removable device.

Microsoft reports you may or may not experience symptoms if your computer is infected but if symptoms do occur here is what you should look out for.

Account lockout policies are being tripped

Domain controllers respond slowly to client requests

Network is congested

Various security-related Web sites cannot be accessed

Automatic Update, Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), Windows Defender, and Error Reporting Services are disabled.

3 Things You Can Do Now

1. Check to ensure your virus protection software is being updated especially in the month of March. If you did, chances are your computer is fine. If not then you will have to do an update to your computer virus software.

2. If you have the Convicker virus, you may not be able to access or download the Remove Malicious Software Removal Tool or access updates. You can try using Windows live but if this does not work, ask a friend to download the software for you on a USB drive and install this way. Norton and McAfee also have updates available to protect against the Conficker but updates should be done prior to the 1st of April.

3. If you still think you have the computer worm try scanning your computer with Best Spyware Scanner and follow the steps. I would recommend you do this regardless just to make sure everything is good with your Security system.

The internet is one of our greatest sources for social networking, information resources and business development today, but like large cities and small towns, we are always at risk of psychological abuse and robbery. It appears the internet is really no different in penetrating our homes and private spaces today sparing us perhaps against the physical aspect.

It is unfortunate when a hacker or malicious software developer, a child molester or the likes invades our homes via this amazing piece of technology for it still feels the same as if our homes and privacy were actually invaded like days of old and robbers and thieves in the night.

With new technology we do run the risk of break-ins against our privacy so it is up to us to ensure we are as protected as possible. To be alert and report scams and do our diligence in downloads and updates to protect against them. By doing your part you keep yourself and your family safe.