PITTSBURGH -- A giant computer worm was set to take effect on April Fools' Day, and it may have already been "sleeping" in your PC, ready to be woken up.
Watch Aaron Saykin's ReportExperts from CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University said the Conficker computer worm was estimated to have already infiltrated millions of computers across the country.
"The scary thing about this worm is that we really don't know what's going to happen on April 1," said CyLab's David Brumley. "It could look at your files, it could launch attacks against other computers or it could just sit there doing nothing."
Video:Threatens To Strike April 1Tech experts said many of the infected machines are set to begin "phoning home" to the worm's creators over the Internet on April 1. When that happens, CyLab said the virus may be able to send spam, more viruses, clog network traffic or even crash Web sites.
While the threat is potentially serious, CyLab said PC users should not freak out about it. Problems are easily preventable, although not always easy to fix.
One test to see if your computer is infected would be to try logging on to
www.microsoft.com, www.symantec.com and
www.mcafee.com.
The Conficker worm typically blocks computers from accessing those sites, so if you can log on, likely your machine isn't infected. If you have trouble shutting down your machine, you might also have the virus.
The
U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Monday that it was releasing a DHS-developed detection tool that can be used by the federal government, commercial vendors, state and local governments.
DHS said Conficker can also be detected and disabled using free software from Symantec,
Microsoft and McAfee.
If your machine is infected, you may need to reinstall the operating system. But researchers at security firms who have been tracking Conficker say consumers shouldn't panic. The worm isn't likely to cause a cataclysmic network event on April 1. Rather they say the intent of the virus might be to create a web to use to steal profitable information, like bank account numbers.
"I have a lot of credit card information on different Web sites under my account, so that would be bad," said student Sungjin Park.
Causing a major network problem could prevent cyber criminals from stealing the information they're looking for.
Consumers should also make sure they have anti-virus software and that it's up to date.
Copyright 2009 by ThePittsburghChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
