Conficker botnet/worm set to hit tomorrow

[Mental]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/31/apri ... index.html

Just a heads-up. Most of us are probably savvy enough to have updated regularly and won't be that susceptible - I checked my registry entries associated with conficker and didn't find any infection. But it's something to be aware of.

[SineSwiper]

If it doesn't tell every office printer to spit out porno, I will be really disappointed.

[Tessian]

as an information security analyst this has been the bane of my existence for the past few days... chances are it won't do jack except cause internet slowdown. They're looking out tomorrow to get new instructions, it's what those instructions will tell them to do in the future that's scary. But still everyone's going crazy and scared... it's sad how many systems don't have patches from October

[Mental]

On another note, here's another hacking article entitled "The Chinese Are Watching You Jack Off Right Now."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/29/ghos ... ef=topnews

(Actually, that's not the article title. But it totally should be.)

[Mental]

as an information security analyst this has been the bane of my existence for the past few days... chances are it won't do jack except cause internet slowdown. They're looking out tomorrow to get new instructions, it's what those instructions will tell them to do in the future that's scary. But still everyone's going crazy and scared... it's sad how many systems don't have patches from October

Windows is practically a backdoor at this point with all the holes in IE, and yes, many many people don't update their systems - usually the ones who will be most freaked out and hysterical if a virus hits.

I have to hand it to Spybot, though. Not one serious infection in eight years or thereabouts. I'm knocking on wood as we "speak", but security through obscurity is the way to go.

These viruses are just programmed to nail stuff like Norton AV, Symantec's stuff, et cetera...honestly, most of the computers I've had to disinfect with viruses are the ones that HAVE antivirus software running, which just makes it five times as hard to scrub out the virus anyway, and then they're likely to insert "tickler" code in the antivirus program anyway so running it infects you with the virus again.

Norton Security, Symantec et. al. are just next to useless, IMO, if not actually more dangerous and more likely to cause crashes and slowdown than anything they're supposed to prevent.

[Tessian]

Avast for antivirus, Spybot for spyware/malware.

Windows is pretty decent IF you keep up with patches, and that's the same for every OS. At least Microsoft tries to make it easier by always releasing on the 2nd Tuesday of the month (Patch Tuesday). I mean this whole issue really says something if the largest virus on the internet is one that exploits a flaw that was patched 4 months ago.

Oh and make sure your administrator account has a decent password on it... the first thing Conficker does is try to brute force other PCs' administrator account (which can never be locked out) to get into ADMIN$ share. Sitting in front of a router is always a must, too.