The worm called Conficker, Kido, or Downadup, has managed to infect almost 15 million Windows PCs to date and continues to spread. It has hit worldwide Windows PCs, not only in the United States, but in Britain, and abroad.
The worm hits Windows operating systems and can be spread in a variety of ways. These include by going on malicious sites, as well as USB memory sticks, etc. Microsoft actually patched this hole in Windows, but since not many people actually downloaded the patch, it still managed to infect many PCs. The best way to help protect yourself is to update your anti-virus software, put up a firewall, and install the Microsoft patches as needed. The Microsoft patch needed to protect from this worm is MS08-067.
But U.S. computer security firm Symantec noted on its blog last week that very few computers in North America had been infected, a trend which it attributed to the greater prevalence of legal and fully patched software."China, India and Russia all have a high percentage of pirated software in use and these countries also feature in the top 10 countries for Downadup infections," said the blog. "The lack of patching due to piracy may be a contributory factor to high infection rates in those countries," the blog concluded.
Security experts say the virus purpose is still unclear and the network of infected computers it has created has yet to be activated. Most such malicious software is used by criminal gangs to send spam or launch so-called denial of service attacks.
You can protect your system from getting infected by disabling AutoRun feature.
The worm hits Windows operating systems and can be spread in a variety of ways. These include by going on malicious sites, as well as USB memory sticks, etc. Microsoft actually patched this hole in Windows, but since not many people actually downloaded the patch, it still managed to infect many PCs. The best way to help protect yourself is to update your anti-virus software, put up a firewall, and install the Microsoft patches as needed. The Microsoft patch needed to protect from this worm is MS08-067.
But U.S. computer security firm Symantec noted on its blog last week that very few computers in North America had been infected, a trend which it attributed to the greater prevalence of legal and fully patched software."China, India and Russia all have a high percentage of pirated software in use and these countries also feature in the top 10 countries for Downadup infections," said the blog. "The lack of patching due to piracy may be a contributory factor to high infection rates in those countries," the blog concluded.
Security experts say the virus purpose is still unclear and the network of infected computers it has created has yet to be activated. Most such malicious software is used by criminal gangs to send spam or launch so-called denial of service attacks.
You can protect your system from getting infected by disabling AutoRun feature.
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