Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Media Hype about Conficker

The major media outlets are shouting from the mountain top about this horrible virus that will ruin the Internet as we know it. In my opinion, not much will happen April 1. Actually the USA only accounts for 5.8 % of all machines that are compromised. I don't normally watch CBS's 60 Minutes but I stopped when I heard the story about Conficker. If you saw the examples they showed, it is all true. You can get malware on your PC even if you have a firewall and AV.

What people should worry about is what happens after April 1. The criminals behind Conficker don't want the Internet to meltdown. This is how they make their money. And where are these attackers from? Most likely China, Russia, or some other Eastern European country.

Microsoft issued an out of band patch back on 10/23/08 that closed this vulnerability. Do you patch? If not, I preach it. Look up prior posts that I've written about on ways to make you more up to date with security patches. I recommend that you go to Secunia and download their client that helps you keep up to date on Microsoft, Adobe, and many other vendor software.

So when you wake up tomorrow, I'm sure that the Internet will still be there. You will be able to check your FaceBook, Twitter, etc. Not much will change. Just realize that the Internet is full of malware. They really know how to evade security software by morphing so that security vendors can't get a good signature of the virus. The Internet is already full of malware today. It will be full of it tomorrow. Learn to be more secure. Realize that it is a risk to be on the Internet. Learn to accept the risk and have fun.

Stay safe and have a fabulous April Fool's Day.

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