If you watched the news on Sunday (60 Minutes, CBC National, CTV National, Calgary Harold…) you saw scary stories relating to the CONFIKER virus. This virus is set to “talk” to its owner on Wednesday and while no one knows if its owner is still around or if anything will happen, something could happen.
Almost all virus alerts are either meaningless or inaccurate and even real virus’ seldom pose a notable problem for Canadians. However, as a result of the extraordinary Confiker hype we have provided the following details about the virus (primarily for use on home machines):
Ø Arcis is well protected against this virus
Ø If you ran WINDOWS UPDATE recently and installed the critical updates you will be fine
· The patch for this issue was released in October, so almost everyone’s home computer should have this already installed
· The patch in question is 958644
Ø If you run an up to date antivirus program, you should be fine
If you are still concerned about the virus, and you want to scan your machine before Wednesday (or after for that matter) you can very easily start the MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL which ships for free with all versions of Windows XP and Vista:
VISTA:
1. Click the START Button
2. Type mrt.exe
3. Press the ENTER
XP:
1. Click the START Button
2. Click RUN
3. Type mrt.exe
4. Press the ENTER key
Note the date on the title bar of the tool. If it is older than MARCH 2009 you should run WINDOWS UPDATE and then start the MRT again.
If you require more information about the Confiker virus check these:
Ø Threat Assessment of Confiker
Ø Free Common Virus Removal Tool
Ø Microsoft Review of Confiker and Microsoft Blog
0 Comments