SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – A tenacious computer worm which has wriggled its way onto machines worldwide is set to evolve on April Fool's Day, becoming harder to exterminate but not expected to wreak havoc.
A task force assembled by Microsoft has been working to stamp out the worm, referred to as Conficker or DownAdUP, and the US software colossus has placed a bounty of 250,000 dollars on the heads of those responsible for the threat.
The worm is programmed to modify itself on Wednesday to become harder to stop, according to Trend Micro threat researcher Paul Ferguson, who is part of the Conficker task force.
The worm, a self-replicating program, takes advantage of networks or computers that haven't kept up to date with security patches for Windows RPC Server Service.
It can infect machines from the Internet or by hiding on USB memory sticks carrying data from one computer to another. Once in a computer it digs deep, setting up defenses that make it hard to extract.
Malware could be triggered to steal data or turn control of infected computers over to hackers amassing "zombie" machines into "botnet" armies.
So, please update the security on your PC and update Windows.
Damn those confickering April fools day worms ... every year another great catastrophe is set to befall us on April fools day .... it's the work of 'The Brotherhood of the Fraternal Sorority' I tells ya!
KMC Community Forums
Mar 30th, 2009 02:32 PM
