So far, nothing has happened today with Conficker except that it’s phoned home to get new instructions, which it has done before. I’ve been unable to find any reports of disaster, or even misuse of network resources anywhere I’ve looked. Has Conficker done anything to you or your organization (other than be an annoyance)? I’d like to hear reports in the comments. For me, my home network is all Unix systems, and no Windows, so nothing to report there. No one in our office picked it up, but some colleagues of mine (not security people) were infected and merely removed the infection and went on with their lives.

Mainstream media is beginning to sound the alarms about the Conficker-C worm which is believed to be affecting more than 2 million Windows PCs. Conficker spreads by an RPC-DCOM flaw in Windows, as well as by network shares–logging into machines that use weak passwords–and by removable media. There is a trigger in the code to download new instructions on April 1st, 2009. Much like the Mydoom or the Sobig worms of years past, researchers know a date when an update is expected to occur, but don’t know exactly what will happen. And, much like those years past, it is likely that not much will occur.

Microsoft along with other security researchers created the Conficker Cabal which has put a $250,000.00 bounty out for information leading to the arrest and convication of those responsible for this particular bit of malware.  F-Secure has a good Frequently Asked Questions list about Conficker and the April 1st trigger.

Bottom line: make sure your system is clean, preferably before April 1st.  Lots of companies have free testing and cleaning tools. Clean your system, and you’ll have almost nothing to worry about on April 1st.