The Conficker worm spreads very quickly

The number of computers infected with the Conficker worm has increased significantly in recent days worldwide. Yet malware can be defended effectively and easily.

The Downadup worm, also known as Conficker, also emerged late last year. It then began to spread to Microsoft MS08-067reported security vulnerabilities in Windows Server in security bulletin. On October 23, Microsoft made the bug fixes needed to fix the vulnerability available for download, but the growing spread of the Conficker worm shows that many people did not install these updates.

In recent days, Panda Security and F-Seucre, among others, have warned that the worm is spreading very fast. Panda experts issued an orange-level alert while F-Secure reported that the number of PCs infected with Conficker had risen from 2,5 million to 3,5 million overnight. You can protect against the Conficker worm by installing Microsoft updates and a properly updated antivirus program.

A Conficker worm tries to spread in two ways. On the one hand, it creates a simple web server on infected PCs through which it tries to deliver its own files. On the other hand, it uses a vulnerability in Microsoft security bulletin MS08-067, which was released in October, to target systems that are connected to a local area network.

A Conficker.B worms are replaceable and can spread through both network drives. However, this is not enough, as it also tries to get on as many systems as possible through system-level shares. If you still cannot infect other computers, you will try to exploit the vulnerability described by Microsoft in security bulletin MS08-067. The malware launches an HTTP server on the infected systems and then downloads various files to them over the Internet. It also makes it impossible to update virus databases automatically. The worm can "disable" Windows System Restore.