Due to Shavlik’s Free Offer, Hundreds of Thousands of Additional Systems Have Increased Protection against Conficker Infection

Shavlik Technologies’ Researchers Deliver Updated Advice and Details of Conficker Variance

Shavlik Technologies, LLC, the market leader in simplifying and automating critical-to-perform IT operations, today announced that more than 300,000 new systems, over a one-week period leading up to April 1st, received licenses for a free assessment via Shavlik’s scanning technology to assess for and reduce their risk of becoming infected by the Conficker virus. The new Health Assessment offer provides a check up on the patch and configuration status of each connected device on a network, allowing network administrators to quickly ascertain which PCs and connected devices need immediate attention to avoid infection.

The bulk of the downloads of the Health Assessment offer occurred before April 1, 2009, but Shavlik will continue to offer the tool through May 1, 2009. Go to http://www.shavlik.com/landingpage/20090326-conficker.aspx for a free download of the utility. Shavlik already protects millions of computers at more than 10,000 organizations worldwide from infection of this malicious variant of the Conficker virus through Shavlik’s NetChk Protect security suite.

The Conficker worm may have infected as many as 10 million PCs, targeting businesses that do not regularly update security patches to PCs and servers in their networks. One Conficker-infected device can infect the entire network. Conficker spreads via a hole in Windows that Microsoft patched in October, as well as through removable storage devices and network shares with weak passwords. Conficker disables security software and blocks access to security Web sites. Once infected, the virus can be taken over remotely by a hacker.

“The lesson of Conficker is pretty simple – patch your systems and pay attention to basic configuration settings like passwords,” said Chris Schwartzbauer, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, of Shavlik Technologies. “We’re delighted so many organizations took advantage of our Health Assessment Tool to accelerate and prioritize their patch management efforts and gain visibility into how their systems are configured. But we strongly encourage organizations to be proactive in protecting themselves from Conficker and other malicious viruses by keeping their security up-to-date on an ongoing basis, not just as a reaction to the latest threat to hit the news.”

According to Jason Miller, Shavlik’s Security and Data Team Manager, “It’s important to note that Conficker is a virus that acts as a Trojan downloader and is downloading and installing a second virus called Conficker.E.” Miller offered the following points about Conficker:
Until this past week, the Conficker virus was not malicious because it wasn’t delivering a payload. Now the virus writers have upped the ante in this “cat and mouse” game, and Shavlik’s research team and other industry experts have officially declared Conficker as malicious. The Conficker.E virus can download and install a rouge anti-virus program on an infected machine.
If a system is infected by Conficker.C, it can also be infected by a second virus, Conficker.E. This is a new development about the virus since last week. The Conficker.E virus will try to infect additional machines using the MS08-067 exploit as well as weak passwords on network shares.
If infected, the Conficker.C and Conficker.E virus will coexist on an infected machine. The Conficker.E virus will not remove the Conficker.C virus.
Conficker.E has a kill date of May 3rd, meaning the virus that is on the system will become dormant when it shuts off its functionality on May 3rd. However, this threat may not be over on May 3rd. It is possible that somebody else could take over the Conficker botnet and continue to spread the virus. Although the Conficker.E virus will no longer function after May 3rd, the Conficker.C virus will still remain active on affected systems.

About Shavlik Technologies

Shavlik Technologies, LLC is the market leader for simplifying and automating critical-to-perform and manage IT operations including patch management, application control, configuration management, and policy and compliance auditing. Shavlik’s innovative approach to simplifying and automating management of the platform frees up IT staff for initiatives that grow your business without sacrificing the visibility and control needed to ensure system uptime and demonstrate proof of compliance with internal policies and external regulations.

With more than 10,000 customers worldwide, Shavlik is trusted to provide solutions that can be relied upon to identify gaps and automatically and reliably fix systems that are missing patches or don’t conform with the corporate-defined configuration baseline. More information can be found at www.shavlik.com.

Shavlik Technologies is a registered trademark in the United States and certain other countries, of Shavlik Technologies. Additional Shavlik product names are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Shavlik Technologies. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

Contacts

Madison Alexander PR
Dan Chmielewski, (714) 832-8716
dchm {at} madisonalexanderpr(.)com
or
Shavlik Technologies, LLC
Jill Teut, (651) 255-5432
jill.teut {at} shavlik(.)com