Mar 31

Okay, the Conficker C virus is all over the news and with headlines claiming that Conficker is “Set To Explode” or that it will be a “Digital Pearl Harbour”, and 60 minutes spending 15 minutes scaring us about it Sunday night, you’re understandably nervous that this virus may melt your computer on April 1. That’s when this hiding virus, or trojan horse, will do something. No one seems to know what that something is. We do know that if you have this virus, something will happen to your computer, most likely that it will be used to attack servers on the Internet by contacting them while thousands of other computers do the same. In other words, your computer will become part of one huge botnet. That would slow down your computer. Or it could very well do something worse to your computer but security experts again don’t really know.  It could be the biggest ever April Fools Day joke. Does that mean you shouldn’t worry? Well, let’s say don’t worry but be safe. There is a removal tool for this from Symantec (read their instructions) and one from Bit Defender . Download one of them, run it, and make sure you don’t have Conficker C.  Also, make sure your antivirus software is updated, and you have your version of Windows up to date (if you’re not sure, make sure you are in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and  click here). If you don’t have Windows and are not using a PC (maybe you’re using a MAC or have Linux as your OS) then you don’t need to worry as this ugly bug, like most bugs, only attacks Windows PCs. To find out more about it, check out Microsoft’s page about Conficker.