Will the worm get us?
Conficker C - no matter if you call it Conficker or conficker B or Downadup - it’s a worm. But worms aren't new. Worms have little to do with April Fool's Day and they aren't the end of the world. Anyone remember Y2K? Did the world come apart? Nope. Not going to tomorrow either.
Okay, fire up your home technology - meaning your PC - and head over to my favorite guru site in our fair city of Chicago. Read the blog entry there, explore the site a bit and then rest easy.
Note - MAC users are most likely not going to be troubled by this worm.
Unless you are behaving irrationally and irresponsibly with your computers, external hard drives or thumb drives, unless you download music, movies, images or other files from sites you know you shouldn't, or click on popup windows or open attachments you aren't expecting via email, you shouldn't have a problem. If your antivirus software is a known brand, and up-to-date, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
If you do any of the above, you seriously need to go download Mike DiMichele's instructions on how to maintain your computer (top of his download page). It's all FREE. It's all easily obtained and you have no obligation to him or to me, for that matter, if you use those thoroughly tested suggestions.
Once again, be sure you are using a good anti malware/antivirus program and you keep it up-to-date. Make sure you behave rationally online and that your children do the same. There's a good way, according to Mike, to know if you have the worm. Open your browser and try to access any of the name-brand anti virus sites like McAfee, Symantec, AVG or Avast, for example. If your browser won't open the page, and gives you an error message about not being able to open the page, you may have the worm. Don’t freak.
It's not too tough to get rid of it - just read the blog I'm pointing you to and do what it says. We'll all get through this, you know.
Happy April Fool's Day - play safe and don't let anyone fool with your home technology. And don't go surfing around looking for info on worms and on Conficker, ok? Listen to the experts.
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