Security company F-Secure warned about a rapidly spreading ‘Downadup’ worm, also known as Conficker, that has been messing around with computers all over the world. According to them, the worm has already infected 9 million computers in the U.S., Europe and Asia (at the beginning of last week, there were a little over 2 million computers infected).

 

F-Secure’s chief security adviser said that although it poses a threat to computers, the rapid spread doesn’t necessarily mean they create an effect of unthinkable proportions. But, the worm appears to be very difficult to remove, especially in case of an internal infection inside a corporate network.

 

The worm exploits network passwords and is capable of infecting USB sticks, it spreads easily by guessing network passwords, and by typically locking network users out of their accounts, F-Secure explained.

 

Once this worm infects a machine, it protects itself very aggressively. It does this by setting itself to restart very early in the boot-up process of the computer and by setting Access Rights to the files and registry keys of the worm so that the user can’t remove or change them.

 

Furthermore, it downloads modified versions of itself from multiple websites, making it hard for security firms to locate it in time and shut it down.

 

Users have been advised to update their system with the latest security patches from Microsoft, to use up-to-date antivirus products, to turn off Autorun and Autoplay for USB sticks, and make sure their domain passwords are strong enough.