On 21st November, , a new virus was detected on the Internet by the name of the Conficker Worm. This new virus is designed to attack the Windows OS, and more specifically, it is designed to disable your malware protection software. Microsoft released an out-of-band patch to defend against the Conficker worm on 15th October, If you followed the recommended settings on your Windows OS, then you should be safe from the Conficker worm, as your computer should have already received and installed the patch automatically.
Since the Conficker worm has gained some notoriety, links to the Microsoft site have been springing up everywhere. There are various third party malware protection software developers that have come up with a patch of their own. The major benefit in using a third party is that you can buy a CD-ROM of the software if the Conficker worm is preventing you from accessing malware protection Websites.
Hopefully, your automatic update feature has been on as recommended and all of this information is for nothing. The VPN software is denying me access and locking my account. With beta, there was a patch that could be installed. Am I completely missing something? Jay, did you ever find a fix for this?
I have the same problem, using Windows 7 with Cisco AnyConnect, and it thinks I'm not patched for Conficker and won't let me connect. It's not even spam Office Office Exchange Server. Not an IT pro? Windows Client. Sign in. United States English. Ask a question.
There is no reason to use this article if your antivirus program is cleaning the virus correctly and if your systems are fully updated. If your computer is infected with this worm, you may not experience any symptoms, or you may experience any of the following symptoms:.
Various security-related tools will not run. For more information, visit the following Microsoft Web page:. Therefore, you must be careful when you clean a network so that the threat is not reintroduced to systems that have previously been cleaned. D variant does not spread to removable drives or shared folders over a network. Do not log on to computers by using Domain Admin credentials or credentials that have access to all computers. Disable the Autoplay features.
For more information, see step 3 of the "Create a Group Policy object" section. Remove excessive rights to shares. This includes removing write permissions to the root of any share.
Important Make sure that you document any current settings before you make any of the changes that are suggested in this article. This procedure does not remove the Conficker malware from the system. This procedure only stops the spread of the malware. You should use an antivirus product to remove the Conficker malware from the system.
You may be unable to correctly install applications, service packs, or other updates while the permission changes that are recommended in the following steps are in place. Make sure that you change the permissions back to default settings after you clean the system.
Create a new Group Policy object GPO that applies to all computers in a specific organizational unit OU , site, or domain, as required in your environment. To do this, follow these steps:. Right-click Registry , and then click Add Key. In the Select Registry Key dialog box, expand Machine , and then move to the following folder:. In the dialog box that opens, click to clear the Full Control check box for both Administrators and System. In the Add Object dialog box, click Replace existing permissions on all subkeys with inheritable permissions.
This prevents the Conficker malware from creating the Scheduled Tasks that can reinfect the system. Right-click File System , and then click Add File. Make sure that Tasks is highlighted and listed in the Folder dialog box.
In the dialog box that opens, click to clear the check boxes for Full Control , Modify , and Write for both Administrators and System. Set AutoPlay Autorun features to disabled. This keeps the Conficker malware from spreading by using the AutoPlay features that are built into Windows. NoteDepending on the version of Windows that you are using, there are different updates that you must have installed to correctly disable the Autorun functionality:.
To disable the Autorun functionality in Windows Vista or in Windows Server , you must have security update installed described in security bulletin MS To disable the Autorun functionality in Windows XP, in Windows Server , or in Windows , you must have security update , update , or update installed. To set AutoPlay Autorun features to disabled, follow these steps:. In the Turn off Autoplay dialog box, click Enabled. Allow for enough time for Group Policy settings to update to all computers.
Generally, Group Policy replication takes five minutes to replicate to each domain controller, and then 90 minutes to replicate to the rest of the systems. A couple hours should be enough. However, more time may be required, depending on the environment. After the Group Policy settings have propagated, clean the systems of malware. If your antivirus software does not detect Conficker, you can use the Microsoft Safety Scanner to clean the malware. Note The Microsoft Safety Scanner does not prevent reinfection because it is not a real-time antivirus program.
This tool is available as a component of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 6. These manual steps are not required any longer and should only be used if you have no antivirus software to remove the Conficker virus. The following detailed steps can help you manually remove Conficker from a system:. Log on to the system by using a local account. Important Do not log on to the system by using a Domain account, if it is possible.
Especially, do not log on by using a Domain Admin account. The malware impersonates the logged on user and accesses network resources by using the logged on user credentials.
This behavior allows for the malware to spread. Stop the Server service. This removes the Admin shares from the system so that the malware cannot spread by using this method. Note The Server service should only be disabled temporarily while you clean up the malware in your environment.
This is especially true on production servers because this step will affect network resource availability. As soon as the environment is cleaned up, the Server service can be re-enabled. Select Disabled in the Startup type box. ImportantThis section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry.
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