Microsoft has offered a $250,000 bounty for information leading to the capture of the worm's creator, hoping that he or she can be apprehended before April 1st. The most recent development in this case is that experts now suspect that the worm may have originated in China.
Do yourself a favor -- run a virus scan today and make sure you don't have Conficker. Nobody knows exactly what it will do come April 1st, but you can avoid becoming a victim by being proactive and making sure your PC is clean.
UPDATE: You can scan your PC for Conficker for free on Microsoft's website.
UPDATE 2: Microsoft has renamed the group of computer professionals that are pursuing Conficker's creator the 'Conficker Working Group'. Hopefully the formal title brings with it an increased dedication to catch this guy.
i thought virus scanners weren't picking it up
ReplyDeleteno?
Microsoft claims that their free online virus scan (which only runs in IE) should pick up all variations of Conficker.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be totally surprised if the Conficker worm turned out to be an "April Fool's Joke," but of course doing nothing still isn't worth the risk
ReplyDeleteTrue. You don't want to promote paranoia over nothing, like Y2K. At the same time, I'd rather keep it off my machines and spread the word just to be safe.
ReplyDelete