April 1st virus activated...fails?

If you are to find you have this virus, you either should not put any personal details ie credit card numbers, anywhere on your computer, or completely reinstall your OS to get rid of it. It's the only way to be completely sure you got rid of it. Viruses and the like are hard to completely be rid of.

My boyfriend works at a Data centre, which is host to a few big websites (I'm not allowed to say who exactly) and on Monday and Tuesday their whole network went down. Maybe not the-end-of-the-internet as we know it, but him and his colleagues have been pretty stressed and busy these past few days. I think it's working again now, if only partially. However, I'm not an expert, I don't know if it has anything to do with this virus.

I also just got 3 warnings from my anti-virus saying it has caught and blocked a virus. This has never happened before. I use Avast! It said it stopped it before it got into my laptop.

reply to post by sadisticwoman


Thats not true, there are quite a few free tools online to remove Conficker C. There's probably a breakdown of a manual remove out there as well.
google

The only thing I noticed last night was that Microsofts website would not come up. A few of their pages would but their main homepage and links went all dead.
Every other site I went on to last night came up fine and my computers are NOT infected. I run both Ubuntu and Winblows XP here and it was the same for both OSs and regardless of webrowser so my guess is that Microsoft took a good hit from it or there just happened to be a large coincidence that their site was having issues on April 1st?

If anything it was a good wake up call for a lot of people to do some spring cleaning on their computers and update their virus protection

I don't get it... but ofc im not an expert on Internet security :p

My virus scanner has Conficker in it's virus list since januari (avira antivirus). If a simple anti virus programme can detect it, how come everyone is so scared about what might happen? There are removal tools available, scanning tools, etc.... No way that this virus can do harm to big networks or important companies if the IT people did there job right... let alone call it a "terror attack" ...imo.
Or am I wrong?

reply to post by darklife


Sadly it wont work as a wake up call, the dozens of viruses and worms before this didn't either. The reason this crap is even possible most of the time is because people don't update their systems regularly, don't employ anti-virus and related security software and in general don't have a bleeding clue about computers in general. So many folks are still using passwords that can be broken in under a minute, so I wont be holding my breath that anybody will learn from this if their system falls to Conficker.

reply to post by InSpiteOf


Unless you have proof that it removes every shred of it from the entire system, the safest bet is still to completely reinstall.

Originally posted by sadisticwoman
reply to post by InSpiteOf

 

Unless you have proof that it removes every shred of it from the entire system, the safest bet is still to completely reinstall.

This is generally the best course of action as it removes all doubt as to the presence of any unwanted software on the system. Might be a long process (usually 45 minutes for an install of XP Pro) but its better than finding out a week after you tried to remove a virus that its still there punting your information to some shady 18 year old in the Ukraine.

reply to post by Helig


I was under the impression it hides itself within the hardware, graphics cards, sound cards etc, these wouldn't be affected by re-installing your OS would they?! I thought this is why its so sophisticated and such a threat?

Or have I heard wrong?

EMM

Edit to add: Whoever said that the people would kick off if the internet was replaced...Not if it was irreperably(Sp?) broken, or it's overall security breached. not to mention recently, our governments don't seem to be too bothered about us complaining.

[edit on 2-4-2009 by ElectroMagnetic Multivers]

Originally posted by ElectroMagnetic Multivers
reply to post by Helig

 

I was under the impression it hides itself within the hardware, graphics cards, sound cards etc, these wouldn't be affected by re-installing your OS would they?! I thought this is why its so sophisticated and such a threat?

You heard wrong. The virus just sits on your hard drive, tucked into windows files and such.

Edit to add: Whoever said that the people would kick off if the internet was replaced...Not if it was irreperably(Sp?) broken, or it's overall security breached. not to mention recently, our governments don't seem to be too bothered about us complaining.

[edit on 2-4-2009 by ElectroMagnetic Multivers]

You cant really just "break" the internet. Its hundreds of thousands of computers connected to each other. Its not really all that centralized.

reply to post by InSpiteOf


That was my point, you can't just turn it off. But if people were worried about this virus and if it is hyped up enough, I don't see many people fighting a move to get rid of an 'infected' internet for a new one which is safer, more protected etc.

It's all about spin.

EMM

reply to post by ElectroMagnetic Multivers


Well like I said, the internet is a series of computers connected to each other, you cant really spin "a more secure internet" when the vulnerabilities stem from the individual systems.

I had to apply this patch to 500 computers, and would just like to point out.. the Microsoft patch (KB958644) to fix the vulnerabilities conflicker takes advantage of, was released on 10/17/2008.

Most if not all companies that use Windows have implemented that patch long before Jan 1st. And majority of home users, have auto updates turned on, and would also have this patch.

So, the only ones I see being infected, already are infected with quite a few spyware and virus types. High risk users who know very little, or should be kept from the internet without proper training.

Originally posted by k4rma
it's all a big conspiracy by the media and antivirus corporations to get us to buy their software, the media outlets are getting kickbacks from them...

I seriously wonder sometimes.

You can laugh at this one: since I haven't been running AV software, I haven't had any viruses.

How do I know if I don't run AV software? Viruses can't escape the wrath of a home-grown solution.

No matter how ingenious a virus might be: it is still a piece of software stored on the HD, ready to survive the next cold boot.

I think this Conficker (or whatever the hell it is called) virus is a hoax.

As was written above: they have the code, so why can't they see what it will do? I think that is BS on its own. They know HOW it will do it, so they can block it. ISPs should be more pro-active in this regard by blocking the ports it will use to download whatever the payload is.

AV companies definitely don't want to do too much, as they want you to buy their product.

Originally posted by mirageofdeceit

Originally posted by k4rma
it's all a big conspiracy by the media and antivirus corporations to get us to buy their software, the media outlets are getting kickbacks from them...

I seriously wonder sometimes.

You can laugh at this one: since I haven't been running AV software, I haven't had any viruses.

How do I know if I don't run AV software? Viruses can't escape the wrath of a home-grown solution.

No matter how ingenious a virus might be: it is still a piece of software stored on the HD, ready to survive the next cold boot.

I think this Conficker (or whatever the hell it is called) virus is a hoax.

As was written above: they have the code, so why can't they see what it will do? I think that is BS on its own. They know HOW it will do it, so they can block it. ISPs should be more pro-active in this regard by blocking the ports it will use to download whatever the payload is.

AV companies definitely don't want to do too much, as they want you to buy their product.

Conficker uses port 445, which most ISPs do have blocked already. The threat isn't the ISPs or the internet, it's idiots that download an infected file, stick in a USB drive to put some file on, and bring that file to work the next morning on the infected drive.

Also, the don't have the code for it, they have the assembly for it. There is a HUGE difference. Have you ever seen assembly? It's the raw instructions given to the computer and isn't exactly cake to take apart and figure out what everything does... It's the same method used by crackers that figure out keygens and things of that nature, and just to figure out that ONE PART of the program takes at least a couple months. They're figuring out more day by day.

Like I said, this is all really just a bunch of media hype and sensationalization... By stating "factually" that something was going to happen on April 1, they've managed to convince everyone it was a hoax, when in reality, the update that takes over the interwebs could happen at any time. Then again, maybe that's the point? Lure us all into a false sense of security, and then BOOM.

You know . . . I ran for four years without an AV or a firewall, or anything like that. I downloaded torrents, visited questionable sites, etc.
No problems. Once a year, I would take my hard drive to get scanned by the tech geeks where I work. Clean.

the only time I caught somethign was when my brilliant wife clicked a pop up. I jus downloaded Smitfraudfix, repaired the problem, and kept on going.

That was the one and only problem I ever had.

Well, my comp got hit on the first.

What I find more interesting is the bill introduce by John D. Rockefeller

www.eweek.com...

Maybe someone has already posted this, if not, it's a must see. Those that are like me that do not believe in coincidence will find the timing of all of this VERY disturbing.

reply to post by ElectroMagnetic Multivers


You heard wrong, from an idiot. No software can hide in hardware like graphics cards. It is not possible. That's basically on par with people thinking hackers can make your computer explode. It's NOT POSSIBLE.

Well the fact the media says something will happen means absolutely zilch unless they are the ones who wrote it. The only person who knows what updates and why would be the virus writer and I don't think he/she would want to destroy the machines they now have at their bidding.

The interesting thing about conficker is how it can adapt so obviously the writer has future plans and wants to keep ahead of the anti virus companies and their virus definitions.

I find it very unlikely the infected PC's would be harmed further at least on purpose there is big money in underground circles/ spamming for stuff like this so why throw away money.

If anyone suspect they are infected there is quite a simple way to tell just visit this link it's a very simple test using images from sites conficker blocks.