Should I be worried about Conficker today?

[Gracy]

:confused: So I guess all the buzz this past week was that today there would be a major virus called "Conficker" or something like that going around..... I'm not a super panic freaky person but I have to admit I've been nervous about doing my online banking today     Someone give me the low down... should I be worried?

[wavery]

:confused: So I guess all the buzz this past week was that today there would be a major virus called "Conficker" or something like that going around..... I'm not a super panic freaky person but I have to admit I've been nervous about doing my online banking today     Someone give me the low down... should I be worried?

Nobody really knows anything "For sure" right now.

It appears that the virus may have been planted in millions of computers over the last year with an "Encoded" feature that activates the virus. This code may be a date, time & date or time, date plus some other mechanism for it to activate.

The user has no way of knowing that it is there, even after it is activated. It logs itself onto a criminal's (hacker) computer and the criminal is then able to record every key stroke that a user makes. This is all done in stealth mode. If I have the virus, he would be recording this boring message as I type it in (I hope that he has a lot of time on his hands).

The scary part is, when I made my reservations online today, he may have stolen my C/C info.

I have a small amount of faith that my up-to-date Norton Anti-virus has kept me safe. I update every day and do an automatic "Full system Scan" every morning at 4:AM.

The flip side is, these anti-virus companies make a lot of $ whenever they get a  bunch of free advertising from the news media on scares like this. That gives them a lot of motive IMHO.......

BTW......you know all of those sweet messages that say, "Pass this on or your butt will fall off" and all of those sweet little pics and amazing scenes that everyone passes around.........Do you think that people come up with this stuff just to entertain others out of "The goodness of their heart"?......think again. Most of that crap has encoded spy-ware, malware, trojan horses and/or viruses in them. Think twice before opening that stuff.....and....if you like your friends......don't pass it on.

[Recumbentman]

FYI.......I heard that if you can go to a anti-virus company web site. then you are OK. seems that the virus will not let an affected computer to go to one of these sites.

[Gracy]

Thanks Wayne... that really helped me understand it better  I guess what really scares me is the online banking.... I never use ATM to pay online so I guess I figure if someone gets my CC numbers I'm fairly secure that I can recover that from CC fraud department.... but the actual bank account I'm less secure about my cash being safe... or being without my money while its being investigated, KWIM.  :confused:



This computer stuff is scary... I think the only one in this world who is safe is my mom who has never touched a computer, never used a credit card, never had an ATM card issued to her and doesn't even know how to answer her call waiting!  Bahaaaaaaaaaaaaha!  PS: When we were going camping one time I gave her my cell number to call me incase she needed me.... she told me "but I don't know how to call a cell phone"  :eyecrazy:   Gotta love mom!  :p

[AustinBoston]

BTW......you know all of those sweet messages that say, "Pass this on or your butt will fall off" and all of those sweet little pics and amazing scenes that everyone passes around.........Do you think that people come up with this stuff just to entertain others out of "The goodness of their heart"?......think again. Most of that crap has encoded spy-ware, malware, trojan horses and/or viruses in them. Think twice before opening that stuff.....and....if you like your friends......don't pass it on.

And if you just have to send it on, PLEASE, for everyone's sake, trim out all the email addresses, and send it as BCC:.  This protects everyone by not publishing private, personal email addresses that are nobody else's business to all the questionable characters in your address list.

When emails circulate with ever growing email addresses on them, they eventually end up in the hands of a spammer, who harvests the list.  Then, because of the forwarder's lazy discourtesy, they get my email address.

I have an email address that I really like.  I've had it for six years.  I have kept it almost 100% spam-free.  The most important thing I do to keep it that way (even more than not using it for on-line sign-ups) is not giving the address to frineds and relatives that have to forward everything they get to everyone in their email box.  Help everyone be spam free.  Use BCC:

Austin

[Camp&Fish]

FYI.......I heard that if you can go to a anti-virus company web site. then you are OK. seems that the virus will not let an affected computer to go to one of these sites.

I wouldn't put too much faith in this technique personally.   You could be infected and still be able to visit an AV website, unless the virus is written to specifically block access.  Remember, the most harmful viruses are meant to be hidden so they can operate undetected and steal your vital information.  If it blocks access to an AV website, it's giving itself away.  The best defense is having a reputable anti-virus program and keeping it up to date, along with periodic system scans.  Another good tool to have is a good spyware program.  Spyware isn't typically malicious, but it does cause your computer to get bogged down.

[oreo57]

My business computer had 7,385 emails this morning (spam box caught 3982 the rest in the inbox) with most being redirects from email address's for people being out of office today....that I never sent anything to.Other than that uneventful...NO viruses :compumad:

[wavery]

As any virus reveals itself, all of the anti-virus companies scramble to come up with a fix for it.

I intend to update my anti-virus software a couple times a day until they find out what this is all about. I updated Norton Anti-Virus last night (on all 4 computers) and had a few updates. This morning and this afternoon, I've had none.