Recent news about the Stinger Worm ( Conflicker ) was featured on last Sundays CBS 60 minutes. They are yet to know what destructive consequences it can cause.

But here are some things you should know !

Microsoft released a patch KB958644 in November of 2008. You can look at your update history to see if your computer has this patch. If your computer is set to auto-update you likely do have it.

Also several Virus software firms have released a stand alone scanner for this problem. One of them being McAfee. This is not a substitute for full Virus protection. And it is likely that even though you may have Fire-Wall and Virus protection ( Norton, AVI, McAfee, Ect. ) They may not be including this tool.

I recommend for everyones safety that you download and scan your computer before April 1, 2009.

The tool is easy to download and takes about at the most 30 minutes to scan your system. It will automatically attempt to repair if the bug is found.

It can be downloaded from this link... Stay Safe...

http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=stinger

Looks like cornlicker was a dud. The world didn't end. I heard the guy on 60 minutes works for Symantec. Gee, I wonder why he would want people to buy his products?

I still have my y2k stash just in case.....

'Bringinthelefty'
Looks like cornlicker was a dud. The world didn't end. I heard the guy on 60 minutes works for Symantec. Gee, I wonder why he would want people to buy his products?
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Yup...I watched the program. He made it sound like his company was the ONLY ONE...Truth is none of them guard against it in their normal anti-virus program. The FREE scanner is a completely separate issue. And probably well over 99% percent of people have the patch.

While we are on the subject of fried computers this site ( AmTam ) has many new people join. I have a list of probably 30 or more people that have signatures ( links ) that are infectious. Clicking on them could be hazardous to the health and well being of your computer.

I also have a list of people that would make good additions to this site. And have been on a waiting list for months.

What to do when we see a new member with a link ( DON"T CLICK ON IT ). Also for those of us who use Firefox ( And I can't think of a reason why a person wouldn't ) Firefox provides an ( Ad-on ) Called ( Inter-clue ) it lets you browse over the link and look first before you open. I have seen other simular tools. But inter-clue is good.

I am 99.9% sure my computer is bullet-proof and most of the stuff is available for free. The developers hope it to be successful ( Beta-Testing ) so that it can be made marketable.

From what I read, if conficker was active in a computer it would have been disastrous for those that keep active financial data on their machines.

Just wanted to let all my peops know of a great website I found that helped me solve a huge Malware problem (called Winibluesoft--NEVER download this. It's a phony anti-virus program that tries to trick people into buying their product to fix problems that IT creates).

The website is bleepingcomputer.com and it has a great message board to help solve any computer problems you might have, including a fix for Conflicker virus.

Cheers, Lefty

that reminds of the one i got a couple months ago. it was called AV2008 and it installed itself posing as anti-virus protection. it kept telling me that i had "thousands" of viruses on my computer and i needed AV2009 to scan my computer and get rid of them. i tried using mcafee to see if this thing could be removed. mcafee was disabled because of this thing. i looked it up on google and found out the only way to get rid of was this thing called malwarebites. so i downloaded that and installed it. while it was installing (running afterwards) the AV2008 thing covered my screen with layers and layers of pop ups telling me that it has detected a problem (some said virus, some said trojan, etc).

long story short, malwarebites got rid of it completely.

moral of the story: look at the pop ups from porn sites before just blindly closing them.

Those malware pop-ups can be nasty. X-ing out doesn't always get rid of them. When I encounter one, I Ctrl-Alt-Del immediately and end the task that is the pop-up. This seems to prevent installation of anything associated with it. Of course, a good firewall is the best protection.

Yes, that is exactly the same as winibluesoft. I used Malwarebites, also, recommended by bleepingcomputer.com and they had a step by step on how to use Malwarebites to get rid of the virus. Malwarebites is a great program and it's free.

The only antivirus software you need is Avira Antivirus , along with Firefox (or completely disable ActiveX & Javascript on IE) and Adblock Plus.

Though, you should probably just use Linux. It's totally free, too.
Just think about it for a second. You've probably already got a Windows installation (XP,Vista,7,etc) that you're running. Just download the Ubuntu ISO from their website, burn it to a CD, then restart your computer with the CD in the drive. It'll give you the option to try Linux out without messing up your Windows, then if you decide that you don't like it, just take out the CD and restart your computer.

If you do like it, it can set it up so that you can dual boot Windows & Linux (so that you can keep using Windows if you want), or you can just go with a Linux install. It will give you a menu to choose between Windows & Linux.

If you do like it, but really need a Windows installation, you could completely install Linux, then install Sun's VirtualBox, then install Windows into that (using your computers restore CDs). Then that way you can run Windows inside a window on Linux, so you'll still have Windows, but even if you get a virus it won't matter because it would be a sandboxed version of Windows.

Here's a link to get you started: Ubuntu.com

None o youse guys'll try it, but just in case somebody happens across here that's on the OS fence, maybe it could help 'em out.