Over the last 24 hours there have been a number of articles posted on tech news sites that are downplaying the impending Conficker evolution on April 1.
Most of the articles point out that Conficker isn’t the worst virus ever created because it has been defeated by Windows patches and virus scans.
They also acknowledge that the new infection has diminished greatly over the last few weeks.
Both of these are true. However, if you are still infected the virus can still do damage.
It’s a threat. How much of a threat is undefinable because no one knows what will happen after April 1. I am advocating for people to clean up their computers because it isn’t in anyone’s best interests to operate on a computer infected with malware of any kind. I’m also fairly certain that the people reading and writing tech news sites are the ones who are at risk. The people at risk frequently don’t know it and won’t get their computers fixed unless someone knowledgeable identifies the problem and fixes it for them.
If you aren’t infected and your computer is up-to-date Conficker isn’t a threat just as Hepatitis B isn’t a threat to a person who has been vaccinated against it.
The bottom-line as I have said in my last three posts on the subject:
If you keep Windows up-to-date and make sure that you have a current virus scan, you should be safe from both Conficker and most other viruses that are circulating the Internet.
If Conficker doesn’t do anything terrible on April Fool’s Day – That’s wonderful! But why put yourself at unnecessary risk?
Practices safe computing.
The Geek Whisperer 