Virus Threat - What To Do
Conficker / Downadup Worm (W32.Downadup)

Just a quick alert about the Conficker / Downadup worm. It's on the grow so it's worth taking a moment to check your systems.

This worm is an important threat to address because it's one of those "remote code execution" exploits, which is security-ese for, "you don't have to do anything to get this except (1) don't patch and (2) expose port 135 (RPC) to the Internet."

Another scary aspect to this virus is that it can be contagious. This virus has the ability to transfer itself onto USB sticks and puts an autorun.inf file on those sticks. Why does this matter? To put it simply, if your system is infected and you take a USB stick out of your system and hand it to a colleague, who then places that USB stick into a second system that hasn't disabled autorun, you have allowed your colleague's computer to also be infected.

Are you safe? StoneHill's Maintenance Plan & Managed Services could protect you from this and future problems. If you're interested in more information, please call Mark at 949-218-1258 x129 or email MarkM@StoneHillTech.com . Protecting your office and helping you avoid high IT bills is important to StoneHill Tech.

If you'd like protection from conficker, you can also get the patch directly from Microsoft: MS08-067 on October 23, 2008. You probably have nothing to worry about if you automatically download and install Microsoft's hotfixes in a timely manner. If not, any major anti-malware tool can identify and clean it, or just download the latest version of Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool (the January 19th version) from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads, then run it by typing "mrt" at the run prompt and follow the prompts. Once finished, MRT offers a hyperlink "View detailed results of the scan." That report refers to the worm as Win32/conficker, rather than the "Downadup" name used by many sources.

For more detail info on the virus threat you can also see W32.Downadup

Please call us if you have any questions at (949) 218-1258 or info@StoneHillTech.com.