There certainly has been a lot of hype surrounding the latest variant of the Conficker worm and its April 1st payload delivery date. While no one seems quite sure what exactly Conficker.C will do on Wednesday, there are a number of concrete steps that PC users can take to feel secure about their machines:
- Update your Windows installation with the latest patches: Either turn "Automatic Updates" on or manually update via "Start -> All Programs -> Windows Update". If neither of these options work then Conficker may already be on your machine (it disables communication with Microsoft).
- Update your antivirus/malware tools with the latest definitions and run a full system scan. This too may fail if Conficker is already resident on your machine.
- Scan your PC with one (or both) of these Conficker scanners:
Internet Storm Center appears to have the complete listing of Conficker removal tools as well as detailed information on the worm itself.
If you follow the above steps then you can feel secure that your machine is both free from and (hopefully) impervious to this rather nasty worm.
