Windows worm -Three million hit

The malicious program, known as Conficker, Downadup, or Kido was first discovered in October 2008.

Although Microsoft released a patch, it has gone on to infect 3.5m machines.

Experts warn this figure could be far higher and say users should have up-to-date anti-virus software and install Microsoft's MS08-067 patch.

According to Microsoft, the worm works by searching for a Windows executable file called "services.exe" and then becomes part of that code.

It then copies itself into the Windows system folder as a random file of a type known as a "dll". It gives itself a 5-8 character name, such as piftoc.dll, and then modifies the Registry, which lists key Windows settings, to run the infected dll file as a service.

Once the worm is up and running, it creates an HTTP server, resets a machine's System Restore point (making it far harder to recover the infected system) and then downloads files from the hacker's web site!

Most malware uses one of a handful of sites to download files from, making them fairly easy to locate, target, and shut down.

But Conficker does things differently.

Anti-virus firm F-Secure says that the worm uses a complicated algorithm to generate hundreds of different domain names every day, such as mphtfrxs.net, imctaef.cc, and hcweu.org. Only one of these will actually be the site used to download the hackers' files. On the face of it, tracing this one site is almost impossible.

Speaking to the BBC, Kaspersky Lab's security analyst, Eddy Willems, said that a new strain of the worm was complicating matters.

"There was a new variant released less than two weeks ago and that's the one causing most of the problems," said Mr Willems

"The replication methods are quite good. It's using multiple mechanisms, including USB sticks, so if someone got an infection from one company and then takes his USB stick to another firm, it could infect that network too. It also downloads lots of content and creating new variants though this mechanism."

Microsoft says that the malware has infected computers in many different parts of the world, with machines in China, Brazil, Russia, and India having the highest number of victims.


INFECTED IPs WORLDWIDE

China 38,277
Brazil 34,814
Russia 24,526
India 16,497
Ukraine 14,767
Italy 13,115
Argentina 11,675
Korea 11,117
Romania 8,861
United States 3,958
United Kingdom 1,789
Source: F-Secure


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Protecting PC data

Encryption is important because without it, anyone can read and steal information from your personal or even corporate files.

However, Bitlocker is only available on Windows Ultimate, which is the most expensive version of Vista.

To find out about encryption for all to use, I want start by pointing out that the difference between encryption and password protection.

Password Protection Software

For instance, when you log in to your computer, a login password is a quick and simple barrier to the files on this system. But this only applies when they are on this system.

If I have stolen your computer, this password is no barrier at all because if I want to find out what data you have, I simply remove this disc and plug into a system that I do know the password to.

But if your files are also encrypted, then if I put this disc into another computer all I will see are nonsense bits and bytes.

Encrypted Folder Hide Password Protection

So, how to encrypt your files? It is important to know before you start that you are going to make changes to the contents of your disc, so back-up that data first.

But keep the back-up secure, otherwise encrypting your first drive will be a waste of time.

First download TrueCrypt.

It is free, it is open source and there are versions for Windows and Mac OS 10.4 and greater, a couple of Linux distributions and Ubuntu as well. You can get it from TrueCrypt.org

If you are a small business owner then you should consider encrypting everything which could leave your premises, because encryption is confidentiality.

Because of this, some hard disc companies like Seagate.org have begun including encryption hardware straight in to their laptop hard discs.

Mobile computers are more likely to get stolen.

Disadvantages

There are some disadvantages to encryption. Here are a couple to think about.

Having to encrypt everything as it comes on and off the hard disc is a complicated process which increases the amount of time it takes to access your files. In other words, your computer runs more slowly.

The second is forgetting your password, or losing the USB drive with the key files. This is a disaster, as the chances of you getting the data back is close to zero.

It is as if your disc crashed or that you wiped it just by forgetting the password. Drive encryption is powerful stuff to get wrong.

So back-up data, keep copies of USB keys in a safe place and leave yourself password reminders.

Million dollar phone
And for the really rich and paranoid you can get your phone data encrypted.

Pictured on the right is the Diamond Crypto Smartphone.

It costs $1.3m (£857,000), but that is largely because it is absolutely jammed with gold and diamonds.

It is a phone for the rich and paranoid.

But if individually hand made phones are your bag, you probably have contacts worth protecting.

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