Tech a byte

The US Department of Homeland Security released a tool on Monday to detect whether a computer is infected by the Conficker worm.

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Conficker's routine on the April 1st with its newest variant dubbed as "Conficker.C" is still a mystery to security researchers.

PCs infected with Conficker.c, the third version of the worm that first appeared late last year, will use a new communication scheme on April 1 to establish a link to the command-and-control servers operated by the hackers who seeded the malware. The date is hard-coded into the worm, which in turn polls any of a number of major Web sites, including Yahoo, for the date, said Stewart.

"So far, we haven't seen any evidence [on those machines] of what it will do April 1," added Stewart, although that's to be expected. "It's not April 1 yet, so they're not going to put something online, where it might be found. In fact, it's almost a little risky for us to try to look for those sites, since it might give away that we have some bots in their network."

However, on F-Scure's notes on their blog, nothing is likely to happen on the said date. Hopefully.

Malicious code circulating through spam messages in relation to Israel-Hamas conflict (Gaza War) was launched yesterday by spammers (which reportedly hosted in China) at around 9 a.m. EST.

Information about these spam messages

• These fake emails are disguised and appear to come from CNN with subject lines "Israel offers short respites from strikes".
• The body of the messages indicates a link to a legitimate-looking CNN website where a news story about the war can be found.
• This bogus website additionally contains a video of the said war and when user attempts to watch it, a pop-up message appears to tell the user to update their Flash player. This is not a legitimate update, but instead a malicious code will be downloaded and may cause serious problem.

Preventive measures to mitigate the security risks

• Keep antivirus updated.
• Do not open open nor unsolicited email messages and links.
• Do not visit untrusted websites.
• Obtain software applications/patches/updates directly from the vendor's website.