Conficker worm - little bugger

I was attempting to fix a clients computer on Monday. It was running very slow, took ages to boot up. So attempted all the usual software - AVG, CCleaner, SpyBot, Auslogics Defrag.

But the thing wouldn't download any updates... strange... Nor was I able to go to the websites... even stranger...

Although I could log onto other websites such as Google, Facebook, eBay etc..

So tried installing MalwareBytes... wouldn't let me do it.

Booted up in safe mode (F8) to install MalWarebytes, it found a couple spyware thingies but nothing special...

Booted up in normal mode, Malwarebytes wouldn't work... grrr...

Thinking it was a network problem (I kept getting "this website does not exist" messages) I played with all the firewall settings, proxy settings, internet options... still no joy. I had my laptop with me which worked fine, so it wasn't the router.

At this point I was getting very frustrated.

So did a Google to see if anyone else was having trouble not being able to see windows update, avg, or any anti-virus website and it came up with worm.conficker.... nasty little bugger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker

I finally got malwarebytes to work - but at this point I'd had too many coffees and had been staring at the screen for 4 hours so I'm not quite sure how it managed to get it to work... A HUGE thumbs up for MalWareBytes for removing the thing though...

Anyway, just wanted to pass it on. If you can browse the internet but can't go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com then you might have the conficker.worm

According to Wikipedia it infected the French Navy intranet and grounded all the planes. Good job they weren't being invaded that day....

Yet another reason for switching to Ubuntu... ahem...