Conficker Attacks Pakistani Internet Users

The PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited), on April 3, 2009, alerted Internet users in the country about attacks from the dangerous Conficker worm, saying that the virus was striking most of the Pakistani online surfers just as it was hitting surfers in other countries.

Dr. Sadik Al-Jadir, Senior Executive Vice-President, (Commercial) PTCL, stated that the worm had slowed the speed of the Internet bandwidth, as reported by The Nation on April 4, 2009. Al-Jadir further said that the Conficker virus had targeted the popular operating systems worldwide, affecting a massive number of personal computers.

He also stated that most of the Internet and broadband users in Pakistan were encountering browsing problems because of the virus, and were reportedly dialing 1218 to contact Technical Support. The executive VP reported that there was a fourfold increase in the number of incoming calls to 1218 Broadband Technical Support since April 1, 2009.

Moreover, the security specialists stated that the malware prevents users from accessing websites, which offer the worm's removal programs.

Notably, the Conficker virus is a highly complicated and prevalent worm in the history of Internet. In recent days, security researchers remained largely troubled with this malware. However, IT security experts hope that the volume of PCs infected with the worm would decline soon.

This decline stems from the fact that two security investigators belonging to the global, non-profit research organization Honeypot Project have invented a technique with which administrators can easily detect infected computers on their wider networks. The technique would aid in eliminating the infection from the PCs as well as diminish the possibilities of the spread of infection across the entire network. Meanwhile, this method is already being used as part of the popular commercial and free network scanners.

Suggesting precautionary measures, the security specialists said that users needed to regularly update their computer systems with the most recent updates of Windows operating software as well as the latest antivirus as it would prevent the worm from penetrating into the systems. Also, users needed to turn off the Autorun facility to remain guarded from the virus, they added.