Holes in the machine

news.bbc. ^ | Monday, 16 March 2009

[JoeProBono]

The Conficker worm will be active again on 1 April, according to an analysis of its most recent variant, Conficker.C, by the net security firm CA. This malicious piece of software, also known as Downup, Downadup and Kido, spreads among computers running most variants of the Windows operating system and turns them into nodes on a multi-million member "botnet" of zombie computers that can be controlled remotely by the worm's as yet unidentified authors. Since it first appeared in October 2008 it has apparently infected more than 15 million computers around the internet, though even that number is no more than an educated guess because the worm works very hard to disguise its presence on a PC. The worm turns Conficker spreads through a security vulnerability in the Windows Server Service that allows a carefully written program to persuade the attacked computer to run malicious code instead of the Microsoft-written software. Once installed it turns off Windows Automatic Update and stops you using the Windows Security Centre. It disables a range of internal services that could be used by anti-malware programs, blocks access to a number of anti-virus websites and even resets and deletes system restore points so you can't go back to an uninfected installation of your operating system.

[jeffc]

What's the trick? I haven't had to clean any users of this one yet, but I'm sure the day is coming.

Step 1: Never let casual users run under an Admin account.

Step 2: If you use an Admin account (as I do), use a password, and make sure the real Admin account has a password, too.

Step 3: Yeah, an AV helps, but I use AVG 8.5 Free, and some will still get through. I find SpyBot's TeaTimer helps alot.

Step 4: Do your own registry backups.

[Still Thinking]

Frank Herbert's Dune, but the sandworms in that one ranged UP from a couple hundred feet in length, IIRC.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks.

[ShadowAce]

We are completely dependent on Windows Update.

I'm not dependent on it at all. In fact, I don't use it.