Conficker is moving again.

The Conficker worm is active again, installing spam relays and spyware on unsuspecting grandmothers’ PCs across the country.  Here are 4 things you should do to protect your Grandmama’s computer.

1. Make sure Windows Firewall is turned on. (or a third party firewall.)
2. Make sure automatic updates are enabled and all the latest patches are installed.
3. Make sure her virus scanner is active and up-to-date.
4. Run the latest Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Here are three bonus steps that have nothing to do with Conficker, but are good security practice and should be done on just about everyone’s PC.

1. Install Window’s Defender or a comparable anti-spyware program.
2. Install Firefox and set it as the default browser.
3. Create a separate admin account for installing software or making Windows configuration changes.  Give Gam Gam normal user credentials to login to the PC.

Don’t get me started about point 3.  No one should be logged in as administrator unless they need to install an application.  I don’t blame Microsoft, I blame years and years of developers with bad habits, they themselves running and testing their apps as Administrator.  Just try to run your PC as a normal user and see how long until you can’t run some necessary software update (Adobe).  See how long it takes for your software to throw an error because it’s trying to write a log file within the “program files” directory (Cisco) or tries to change some registry key that a normal user can’t change (PowerDVD).  Don’t get me started…I could rant about this issue for hours.

Related posts:

1. Let the downloads begin: Windows 7 RC1 has launched
2. MicroSoft Windows 7 At 50% Discount
3. Windows 7 could be released as soon as August
4. Microsoft confirms Windows 7 for Q4 2009
5. Windows 7 Release Candidate to be shown next week.