The Conficker virus has been all over the news and online sites for preparing you for the worst this April Fools Day.  The virus, Conficker, is intended to bury itself deep into the Windows operating system, and then hack in to steal passwords, credit card info, and bank info.  Further, the virus will spread from computer to computer and could ultimately use the computers to send spam, viruses, and spyware to many other computers. 

Why on April Fools?  The virus is said to possibly be in Windows computers right now.  And it’s code is to trigger on April 1st at midnight, connect to other computers, and then scan thousands of websites to get a new set up instructions informing it what to do next.  Pretty dramatic, isn’t it? 

There have been earlier versions of Conficker, but all have been duds compared to the image of the new upcoming version.  Symantec security experts indicated that they are not totally buying this April Fools prank as truthful.  They said this specific time of virus replication could be put out to the public as a prank or possibly to release it earlier or later.  Basically, they feel the timing of this could be all off or not even a valid point at all since it could just be a joke.

Whether a myth or reality, it’s better to be safe than sorry.  You can protect yourself from the Conficker virus by downloading Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool as well as updating your anti-virus software.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Virus/Spyware/Spam/Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.