Microsoft's Conficker Virus

Microsoft has Offered $250,000 as Reward for Information on the Conficker Virus

The fact that Microsoft has offered $250,000 as reward for giving information about the originators of the Conficker virus shows that the computer giant has been seriously hurt. An estimated 9 to  15 million computers around the world have been infected with the deadly virus. The Conficker virus has spread like a wild fire amongst many computers all over the world.

Conficker has proved to be an extremely smart virus. It disables all security features and system-restore points like starting your computer in safe mode before it begins its malicious activities. It makes complete copies of itself on other computers in the network, propagating itself through LAN and removable drives. Once it has established itself in the computer, it connects to a remote server to download additional pernicious software to achieve its deadly objectives.

Large corporations, including defense computer networks of several countries across the world have been at the receiving end of the attack from this powerful virus. Moreover, some security experts believed that the real payload was to be delivered on the 1st of April and the virus was just infecting computers, getting ready for the d-day. However, this has not turned out to be true since we are already well into April. Nonetheless, the problem of the currently infected computers remains unresolved. Business users who have applied the security updates and are using the latest anti-virus definitions are safe from the virus. But those who have not done so are still vulnerable.

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