Whew….  We made it past the April 1.  Doomsday by some accounts if much of the press had their way.  The day Conficker was going to take over our computers.

I have 7 Windows computers running all the time in my house.

I had this picture in my mind that at 12:01 AM on the morning of the 1^st all of the monitors were going to light up, the keyboards would start typing by themselves, and the mice would be moving and clicking by themselves.  There is more, but I’m saving it for the book.

No, really, the scare and hype, of the Conficker worm came and went without so much as a whimper.

Until Thursday.  Eight days after we spent hours talking about the worm, it woke up.  April 8^, 2009.

The download that was expected by computers already infected with Conficker was caught by Trend Micro and was transmitted from infected machine to infected machine by the worm’s built in peer-to-peer network, meaning they could talk to each other on a private network using the Internet.  It did not download it’s new payload by DNS lookup of 50,000 domain names as was previously thought.

The payload, as reported by Kaspersky Labs, is now serving up a fake anti-virus program, who’s name is not known, to remove malware for $49.95.

Also, included in the payload is an old email worm called Waledac.

Waledac embeds itself as an email attachment on email it sends out using your address book to all of the email addresses it finds on your computer.  It’s also capable of harvesting from your hard disk and forwarding password information back to it’s source.

It usually sends an email that looks like a holiday card wishing Christmas and New Years greetings.  But, since this is April, it may send other types of email to convince you to click on the attachment. In the past, the attachment is always ecard.exe. I don’t known yet if it will be the same file name for this outbreak.

Should you worry about this event?  The awakening of Conficker and it’s cousin Waledac?  Do you have a good reason to panic about this?

NOT !!!!!

Why?  That’s really a good question.  Think about it.  (pause)  What did I tell you you should do about this last week? (pause).

Oh…  Ok.  I’ll tell you again.

1. Make sure you have all of the Windows updates installed.  Including Service Pack 3 on XP and Service Pack 1 on Vista.

2. Make sure Automatic Updates are turned on.

3.  Make sure you have a modern anti-virus software, newly installed in the last 12 months. Not Norton System Works 2003 either.  Make sure it is updated and running.

If your anti-virus software, not just the daily updates, is more than one year old and you either don’t want to pay for a new copy or don’t have the money, remove what you have and install the free version of Avast.  You can get it by click on the download link in the menu at the top of the page.  Make sure you remove you old antivirus software before you install it.  There are Norton and McAfee removal tools available on the downloads page as well.

And, don’t forget to register Avast or it will expire after 60 days.  It’s free to use after you register it.

4. And I am going to emphisize this again.  PRACTICE SAFE SURF!

DON’T click on attachments in your email unless you have a method of verifying who sent it.  I don’t care if they are pictures from your sister.  Email her or call her and make sure she sent them

DON’T click on pop up windows that say you have a virus, spyware, or any ware.  If the popup did not come from the anti-virus or Internet security package that is already installed on your computer.  DON’T DO IT

I guess the bottom line here is that you are already protected if you follow these basic rules.  You have nothing to worry about.

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The instructions below will step you through the process of setting up the Avast Proxy Server. By setting this up, you are making sure that all Internet traffic passes through Avast, adding an extra layer of protection.

1. Right-click on the Avast icon in the System Tray, it’s the blue ball with the letter “a” on it, and then click on Program Settings.

2. In the menu on the left, click on Update (Connections).

3. Now choose what type of connection you have. Check the top check box if you use a dial up connection or the bottom check box if you have a high speed connection.

4. Click on the Proxy button to continue.

5. Click on the round circle, called a radio button, to choose Specify proxy server.

6. Make sure the Type: says HTTP.

7. In the Address box type localhost.

8. In the Port box type 12080.

9. In the Authentication area make sure the Type is Basic authentication (plaintext).

10. Make up a user name of your choice. You will not need to use it ever again.

11. Make up a password of you choice. You will not need to use it ever again.

12. Click on the Test connection button at the bottom of the screen.

13. In a couple of seconds you should see a box that says “Proxy server settings are correct”. Click the OK button to continue.

14. Click the OK button at the bottom of the remaining screen.

15. And, finally, click OK on the bottom of the Avast Settings box.

That’s it, you are done. Now, all browser traffic will pass through Avast before it’s displayed on your screen.

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