Happy Fools Conflicker Day!!!

April 1 2009

As you may be aware, several variants of a worm called Conficker have been circulating around the Internet. The latest variant, Conficker C is programmed to do “something” on April 1, but security experts do not know what that “something” is. What is known about Conficker C is that it disables some security measures, disables Windows automatic updates and is very hard to detect. The variants of the Conficker worm have spread through network shares and through portable media devices such as USB drives.



There are some preventative measures that you can take on your organization’s networks to be prepared:

· Update patches on the machines on your network

· Make sure your anti-virus software is updated and scan your machines

· Disable autorun on removable media devices

· Monitor local network traffic for high peer to peer traffic

· Use host-based firewalls

· Disable network shares when possible



For more information about the Conficker C worm, you can refer to the following websites:

· http://mtc.sri.com/Conficker/addendumC/

· http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/03/confickerc-primed-for-april-fools-activation.ars



The Security Office will continue to monitor the state network for activity related to this worm. The impact of the April 1 date is unknown, but I recommend you take preventative measures now.
Thanks K Patterson