“The Conficker virus has opened a new can of worms for security experts,” BBC News reports.
“Drives such as USB sticks infected with the virus trick users into installing the worm, according to researchers,” The Beeb reports. “The ‘Autoplay’ function in Vista and early versions of Windows 7 automatically searches for programs on removable drives. However, the virus hijacks this process, masquerading as a folder to be opened. When clicked, the worm installs itself.”
“It then attempts to contact one of a number of web servers, from which it could download another program that could take control of the infected computer,” The Beeb reports. “It has also emerged that the virus automatically disables the automatic updates to Windows that would prevent further infection.”
“As the virus – also known as Downadup – has spread to an estimated 9m computers globally, a number of high-profile instances of the virus have arisen,” The Beeb reports. “The Ministry of Defence has been battling an outbreak of the virus across its network for more than two weeks, and on Tuesday a network of hospitals across Sheffield told technology website The Register that more than 800 of their computers had been infected.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dirty Pierre le Punk” for the heads up.]
