Doomsday is Not Coming Tomorrow

I've already been asked several times the last 48 hours about the Conficker worm that's supposed to activate tomorrow. Thanks to many doomsday scenerios being protrayed on TV news shows about what this thing could do, people are in a dither about it. Granted, it's finally good that folks are being forced to think about their computer security, but it shouldn't take some sensationalist news story to do so.

But the worst thing to do would be to panic, so don't. I've already talked to several folks who said they're just not going to turn their computer on tomorrow because they're afraid this thing is going to hack into their computer, steal all their credit card information and passwords, take nude photos of their first-born child, and sell it all to the Iranian government or something ridiculous (somebody's been watching too much Fox News).

For what you need to know, and what this worm is going to try to do and what you can do to prevent it, just read up on here, follow the directions there, make sure you've fully patched your system on Windows Update, check your system now, and sleep a bit easier. Also make sure your apps on your computer are fully up to date and patched with tools like Secunia (PSI) and the FileHippo Update Checker. As a precautionary measure, I'm making sure the systems here at the office (at least the ones I'm in control of, as there are real-estate agents here as well that I don't work with) are not infected.

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