News: Security in Small Business

Conficker's I.T. Implications for Small Firms

One of the computing community's most elusive threats to understand - but be fooled to think the IT community was crying wolf. The wolf may still be here.

by Keith Wheeler

5/4/2009

Back on April 1st, the entire computing community was waiting to see if the much-hyped Conficker worm was going to cause massive problems for millions of computer users or fade away with nary a whimper. After all, the data security specialists weren’t even sure what Conficker was supposed to do. In trying to understand the Conficker scare, it’s logical to begin with just what Conficker actually is and why it matters to smaller companies. According to data protection and security software company Symantec, when Conficker finds a vulnerable computer, it does the following: Turns off the automatic backup service Deletes previous restore points Disables many security services Blocks access to a number of security websites Opens infected machines to receive additional programs/instructions from its creator Attempts to find other vulnerable computers on the same network What could Conficker do? It has been speculated that Conficker might be used to send SPAM messages in attempts to run phishing scams and steal identities, but the question is yet to be answered. The April 1st payload date came and went without major incident so many people have stopped paying attention. Can we forget about Conficker since nothing happened on April 1st? No. Conficker is still installed on millions of computers worldwide and it continues to try to spread itself in different variations to more computers – including yours. Since its full instructions aren’t embedded in the initial code, we have no clear idea of what it might be capable of becoming so we must remain vigilant. Wasn’t Conficker all just a big scare? It is reminiscent of the Y2K scare when nothing really happened. That’s an understandable impression, but these are two very different situations. Y2K was based on concerns regarding legacy (old) code. Conficker’s threat is from code that has not yet been defined. What should small company managers be doing? Be absolutely certain that your security software is loaded, working and completely up-to-date. Verify updates on a regular basis – consider weekly reviews. Work with Responsive Network Services to verify that full protective measures are in place.