It’s been in the news.  This Wednesday - April Fools' Day - computers that are infected by a virus called the Confickr worm will be used to send out e–mail scams/spam, viruses, or may even be used to steal information from the affected computer.

The Conflickr worm does not affect computers running the Macintosh OS X operating system, although Macs running Windows may be vulnerable.  College-owned Windows machines, including managed systems in Advancement, Admission, and Financial Aid are protected. 

If you are unsure if your Windows machine is infected by the Confickr worm, please use an anti–virus program to scan your machine.  At Franklin & Marshall we license and support Symantec AntiVirus.  The Confickr worm is easily detected by Symantec AntiVirus.

Symantec AntiVirus can be downloaded from the Franklin & Marshall ITS Software Server at http://software.fandm.edu.

Please note, Windows machines that have run Microsoft updates are not affected by this threat. The patch for Conflickr was released in October 2008.

If you do not have the Microsoft patch installed, it can be downloaded from Microsoft by using Windows Update. If your Windows machine is infected by the Confickr worm you can download the Microsoft Removal tool from the Microsoft web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx

If you have any questions or need any additional information, please contact the ITS Helpdesk.