PC worm may create havoc on Fool’s Day’

[sajiv]

PC worm may create havoc on Fool's Day'

London: A security expert has cautioned that an internet worm, called Conficker C, can strike at infected computers around the world on April 1.

Conficker C is a sophisticated piece of malicious computer software, or malware, that installs itself on a PC hard drive via specially written web pages and then conceals itself on the computer.

Graham Cluley, of the security specialist Sophos, has claimed that Conficker C is programmed "to hunt for new instructions on April 1".

However, "this does not mean that anything is going to happen, or that the worm is actually going to do anything. Simply, it is scheduled to hunt a wider range of websites for instructions on that date," the British newspaper Times quoted him as saying.

And the biggest catch is that no one yet has any idea what exactly Conficker C is programmed to do. Cluley said: "It's as if someone is assembling an army of computers around the world, but hasn't yet decided where to point them."

Experts are fearing that on April 1 all the world's millions of infected computers may receive simultaneous instructions to attack, or to flood the internet with spam email.

ANI