Conficker Sill Active
Back in March 2009 the worm Conficker gained notoriety for its countdown-to-activation.
We covered Conficker and removing Conficker quite extensively before and after the launch date, and now about six months later, it unfortunately comes as no surprise that systems are still being infected by it.
In fact, Kaspersky Antivirus, who publishes a list of the top malware stats every month in September 2009 still has Conficker in its various forms (called 'Net-Worm.Win32.Kido' by Kaspersky) occupying three of the top 20 malware spots.
The folks at Viruslist.com, who (along with a ton of other things) report on Kaspersky's malware statistics, go on to point out that,
Kido (Conficker) remains active. Kido.ih, the leader of this Top Twenty for the last six months, has been joined by another variant, Kido.ir, which is a newcomer to the rankings
Removing Conficker isn't easy and many antivirus software vendors had a tough time getting a handle on how to remove the worm from infected PCs, but as far as we know every major antivirus program today is now capable of stopping and removing Conficker/Kido.
This is part of the reason, no doubt, why the authors of Conficker continue to write new versions: to try to thwart the A/V programs from stopping and removing their worm.
Regardless of whether or not your PC has been infected, make no mistake: just because it has been six months since Conficker's activation date, it's still a real threat, and if your PC is unpatched, all you have to do is be connected to a network (or the Internet) where there are other infected machines for yours to be at risk of infection, too.
This threat is all but eliminated if you're running any of the best firewall antivirus software or Internet security suites.
Lastly, as a reminder, do make sure your PC is has the latest patches. It typically takes just a few minutes to apply the patches and after a reboot (sometimes two!) you're in business.
