Windows Operating Systems And Networking Tutorials

If you don’t know about the “Conficker” worm also known as Downadup or Kido, than my friend your existence is skeptical. Its been in news for a while now that conficker is going to do something on April 1, nobody knows what, but don’t take it easy because you can also be a victim of it. Here are some steps to avoid possible threat.

• Check Windows Update

The worm enters into your computer through Windows vulnerability that was patched last October, one in place it can mingle with the Windows Update System, to ensure its existence. So, make sure that your Windows is up to the mark to counter the worm.

• Turn Off Autorun

Conficker overthrow this handy feature to conquer your system. No doubt this feature is very convenient, but don’t accept convenience over your systems protection. So turn-off the autorun feature.

• Update Anti virus

Its assumed that everyone keeps software and malware definitions up to date. But don’t rely just on automatic updates, because the worm is capable of interfering in this function. So make sure to manually download the latest definitions and up date them with your own hands. And launch a full system scan.

• Get a second Opinion

Visit the Conficker Working Group’s Repair Tools page to find the latest collection of threat-specific cleanup tools. At present, this page links to tools from AhnLab, ESET, Kaspersky, F-Secure Malware Removal Tool, McAfee, Microsoft, Sophos, Symantec, and TrendMicro. Run one or more of these to verify that your system is clean.

• Check Servers

Confickers favorite prey is a computer network. It attacks network shares using dictionary attack. It strives to gain network passwords, so if you are network admin at office or at home, please check all the network shares and make sure they are protected by strong passwords, and all the steps we are quoting are applied on every machine of network.

• Inoculate Servers

Products like Faronics Anti-Executable prevent the launch of any program that’s not pre-approved.When no unapproved program is allowed to launch, it doesn’t matter how cleverly malware morphs—it’s powerless.

• Back up (the most important step)

Back up is always a good practice, because worms and viruses are not the only threats, anything can happen to your system. So make sure you have back up system in place and its operational. If not than get a high capacity usb or hard drive and make back up of your important data.

• The Easiest Way

If you don’t want to perform any of the above steps, still you can save your machine. Just unplug the network cables, disable the wireless connection and do something locally on your pc.

An IP address is a unique logical identifier for a node or host connection on an IP network. An IP address is a 32 bit binary number, and represented as 4 decimal values of 8 bits each. The decimal values range from 0 to 255. This is known as "dotted decimal" notation.
Example: 192.189.210.078
It is sometimes useful to view the values in their binary form.
192 .189 .210 .07811000000.10111101.11010010.1001110

Every IP address consists of network identifier and node identifier. The IP network is divided based on Class of network. The class of network is determined by the leading bits of the IP address as shown below.

Public IP Addresses are IP addresses that are visible to the public.
Because these IP addresses are public, they allow other people to know about and access your computer, like a Web server.In some cases, you do not want people to access your computer or you want to restrict certain individuals from accessing your computer or server.
The IP Address that you make known to others on the Internet is called your Public IP Address and you can hide it if you want.
Range Of Public IP's
Class A addresses begin with 0xxx, or 1 to 126 decimal.
Class B addresses begin with 10xx, or 128 to 191 decimal.
Class C addresses begin with 110x, or 192 to 223 decimal.
Class D addresses begin with 1110, or 224 to 239 decimal.
Class E addresses begin with 1111, or 240 to 254 decimal.