I was just reading about the Cornficker worm on how it’s going to infect hundreds or perhaps millions of personal computers on April 1, 2009. Here are some facts about the Cornficker worm from ZDNet’s website.
What is Conficker and how does it work?
Conficker is a worm, also known as Kido or Downadup, that cropped up in November. It exploits a vulnerability in Windows that Microsoft patched in October.Conficker.B, detected in February, added the ability to spread through network shares and via removable storage devices, like USB drives, through the AutoRun function in Windows.
Conficker.C, which surfaced earlier this month, shuts down security services, blocks computers from connecting to security Web sites, and downloads a Trojan. It also reaches out to other infected computers via peer-to-peer networking and includes a list of 50,000 different domains, of which 500 will be contacted by the infected computer on April 1 to receive updated copies or other malware or instructions. Previous Conficker variants were written to connect to 250 domains a day.
After reading more of it, I just realized, I have nothing to worry about. My desktop is running Ubuntu Linux.