April Fools Day Computer Virus

[Llama231]

Well, I could not find this mentioned on the forum anywhere, or with search, so:
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/19054439/detail.html

...Yeah.

[Kaelaroth]

It seems I'm safe. Thanks for pointing it out; the article I read on it was greatly uninformative.

[Divine Comedy]

It's really a masterfully designed virus, whoever made it could have instead used their skills to make quite a bit of money. It's self-propagating and very complex. On top of that the activation code isn't in the program, it's going to be sent from elsewhere on April 1st.

The problem with it is that they've yet to decrypt enough about it to figure out just what it does. It'll probably just do something annoying such as linking you to lemonparty or a site like it. But from everything I've heard it's not that hard to disable.

[CrimsonAngel]

Ugh, I hate those morons that create viruses just to spite people.

[Recaiden]

I find it interesting that all 3 of the anti-virus sites linked by that article have something about it on the first page.

[Divine Comedy]

Ugh, I hate those morons that create viruses just to spite people.

It's such a waste of talent really. A complete and total shame. They should come program for me, I'd pay them well.

[RS14]

Ugh, I hate those morons that create viruses just to spite people.

They're at least better than the people who create malware for DoS attacks or to collect financial information. I wish viruses were simply annoying.

[BizzaroStormy]

Considering the fact that its april fool's daty, theres a distinct possibility that its a rick roll.

[skywalker]

When I got home tonight, my mom was busy shutting off all of the computers in the house. Seems to me, that's not going to help much if it's already on your computer, since it can just get instructions later. If you don't already have it... Then you're not going to suddenly get it just from having your computer on.

:sigh:

So, even tho I hate people who make viruses, malware, etc, I also hate media outlets who seize the opportunity to put "virus" and "computer" in the same sentence to scare the ba-jeezus out of people. I don't think they really make any money, even. Maybe it's just the power over uneducated minds that they savor?

[13_CBS]

Well, it's past midnight where I'm at, and it looks like my computer hasn't exploded or anything.

Any reports from other playgrounders?

[IsaacTheHungry]

nothing yet, just remember that we don't know when today the controllers will activate it, unless they tell it to wait a few days to ketch people of balance, now i'm off to replay Myst 3 while the world crumbles around me:smallcool:

[ghost_warlock]

To do my part in fighting against the virus, I'm going to go murder a curry. Mmmm, curry. =d

[Lorn]

Well, I currently have no problems.

Then again, I've cleaned Conficker from my computer no less than three times and since then stopped using my pendrive at school, so I shouldn't have it on...

[Haruki-kun]

*Whistles happily behind the safety of Linux*

Funny ain't it? :smallwink:

[Nevrmore]

I'm hoping that the entire "Infects Windows" facet of the virus is all clever misdirection and every Mac user in the developed world has their computers implode.

I don't hate Mac or anything, it'd just be pretty funny.

[kriebly]

Well, I currently have no problems.

Then again, I've cleaned Conficker from my computer no less than three times and since then stopped using my pendrive at school, so I shouldn't have it on...

Conficker-B spreads from CDs and usb drives to computers if Autorun is enabled. To disable in XP and Vista respectively:

http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/ht/autorun.htm

http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/ht/vista_autorun.htm

[Killersquid]

Turns out this thing hasn't been very effective. Only 7% of infected computers experienced a problem, so it was either an update got through, or the designer sucked at making it. Also, how did they know it would go off on April Fool's day?

[kriebly]

Turns out this thing hasn't been very effective. Only 7% of infected computers experienced a problem,
Whatever percentage of infected computers exhibited a problem, 100% of them _have_ a problem since they're still infected.


Also, how did they know it would go off on April Fool's day?
I would guess from researchers examining the binary code of isolated worms.

What I really hope is that all of the press coverage created a self-defeating prophecy, with users actually cleaning up their systems and/or taking preventative action before April 1.

What, I'm not allowed to hope??