Conficker Worm Defense for Enterprises

A blog-post over at ZDNet describes how enterprise data-ops can use network scanners to detect and disarm the Conficker Worm vulnerability on Microsoft Windows platforms, before it potentially wakes up on April 1st and begins to disable your anti-virus software.

One wonders whether the ZDNet writer was suffering from subliminal puritanism. The name of the worm is Conficker, not ConfLicker (sic). Presumably, the name is derived from the conjunction of Con, as in confidence trick (to enable it) and ficken, the German F-bomb (when it disables you).

Confession: Aye, 'twas I who corrected the ZDNet scribe. :-)

See the US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA09-088A, for more information.

What's Up (and Down) for 2009

My Aussie colleague, Steve 'Jenks' Jenkin, just pointed me at Robert X. Cringely's (real name: Mark ... Well, who cares? Besides, I like the 'X' factor) prognostications for 2009. Even though he's basically a journalist (a very plugged-in journo, btw), you gotta respect a guy who also reviews his previously wrong predictions.

"Final (2008) score: 4 right and 11 wrong. ... Obviously I have to start making vaguer predictions ..." :-)

Despite this self-flagellation, he's generally had some pretty good insights prior to 2008 and you can't win 'em all, all the time. Here are some of his darts-in-the-wall for 2009:

• "The good news is that most recessions mean new IT platforms."
  
• "The next Yahoo CEO will dismember the company and sell it piecemeal."
  
• "Microsoft and Google will peak in 2009 ... Steve Ballmer is toast." [ Jenks claims 2010 for the M$ demise.---njg] (Like Humpty-Dumpty, The Goog) "... is too fat and happy."
  
• "If Microsoft and Google are down then what's up? Apple!"
  

Please standby. ...