April Fool’s Day has always been a favorite of Internet “pranksters”, hackers and disseminators of online evil. Reports are floating around that the Conficker worm’s latest variant will become active on April 1. Conficker malware is designed to spread the malware and grow a massive botnet, and the latest version, W32.Downadup.C, will strengthen the purposes of the worm’s creators. This latest version deactivates security processes on the victim’s PC, preventing some security products from running. It also prevents computers from connecting to some security Web sites. Security software commonly “phones home” to update blacklists and other up-to-date anti-malware information. The latest version also generates thousands of domain names, which are used by the zombified PCs to check in for further instructions.

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