Was Conficker.C really an April Fool’s Day joke?

Many experts believe we may see other malicious actions take place from Conficker.C in the days to come. The April Fool’s Day Worm or Conficker.C infection has not caused any major issues as of yet. We have kept an eye on Coficker.C all day for April 1st and so far and we do not have any incidents to report. This does not mean everyone is in the clear when it comes to being infected with Conficker.C as experts continually work with 116 countries to combat the worm before anything malicious happens.

What is now known about Conficker.C since April Fool’s Day has come?

What we do know about Conficker.C is that on April 1st a master computer will take control of millions of computers or “zombie computers” that were already infected with Conficker.C. What does this mean? It could mean that an estimated 10 million computers could be used to carry out malicious actions just like in the case of a botnet. Botnets are groups of compromised systems controlled remotely to later execute various actions such as sending spam messages or attack a specified network. Conficker.C could still be the ferocious worm that we have feared over many weeks prior to April Fool’s Day. April 1st does not mark the end of Conficker.C.

Interesting enough, the infected machines can be operated by the worm’s author giving them full administrative level rights so they can run any program they want at any time. Does this mean we should get ready for Defcon 3 (Defense Condition 3) at the missile silos that harbor nuclear weapons because the launch control systems are infected with Conficker.C? Probably not, but it does leave some uncertainty about the full potential of Conficker.C.

The Conficker Worm and all variants (including Conficker.C) of the infection can be removed. Download the Conficker Removal Tool to alleviate any presence of this potentially dangerous worm before it is able to do harm to your computer.

What is the goal or objective of Conficker.C’s creators?

The motive of Conficker.C’s authors, although somewhat obvious to many security researches, has not been 100% confirmed but is believed to be financial. With the type of control that the authors of Conficker.C could potentially have over millions of systems means they may choose to do anything from steal credit card numbers to send out spam messages.

Conficker.C remains to be a serious threat and the creators may not back-down after all of the hard work into creating this massive botnet.

Is it possible that the authors of Conficker.C are waiting for everyone to let their guard down and then make their move or initiate their attacks?