April Fool’s Virus — Is Your Computer In Danger?
Everyone has been talking about this virus that is supposed to attack our computers on April Fool’s Day. Is it real?
Well, I have seen news reports about it, read it all over the internet, and talked to people who are convinced this virus is real.
Microsoft has even offered $250K for catching the creator of this virus. I think it’s time we all prepare ourselves and make sure this bug doesn’t affect our computers, right?
Will You Be Affected By The Conficker Worm?
This virus, called the Conficker worm, can affect millions of computers this week starting tomorrow and do some real damage to your computer. In fact, CNN reports that this program is thought to have infected up to 10 million computers as of March 24th.
You may already have it on your system and you don’t even know it because this virus will stay dormant until tomorrow — April 1st. At that point it is only a speculation, but this virus could:
- delete files of off your computers
- delete your programs
- install software that will get your financial information
- monitor your keystrokes to collect private information
- get you to buy fake software or spend money on other phony products
How Can You Protect Your Computer From The Conficker?
But don’t panic. There is a way to protect yourself and it is not brain surgery. Anyone can do it!
First, did you receive automatic updates from Microsoft earlier this month? If so, then you are probably fine. Conficker would disable the automatic updates for you.
But what if you have the automatic updates off? What if you do your updates manually?
No problem. Microsoft has tools to find and remove the Conficker virus. All you have to do is go and get the updates from here: http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate.
If you are using 3rd party antivirus software, you should also check to make sure if you received the latest updates as Conficker might have disabled those as well.
Next, backup your computer. Hopefully you have been doing your backups regularly so in case something happens, you will be able to easily restore everything. If not, you have to run a complete backup as soon as you run your updates.
And my final tip — do not open strange emails, don’t click on weird pop up ads, don’t click on links that you don’t recognize — just be safe for the next couple of days, ok? You do that and I promise you, Conficker will leave you alone.
Oh, if you want more information about this virus and updated news, visit Microsoft — Protect yourself from the Conficker computer worm.
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