A quick test for Conficker

Wondering if you've been hit by the Conficker worm? Here's a "Conficker Eye Chart", an ingeniously simple web browser test created by Joe Stewart which takes advantage of the way the worm works.

Just follow the link above, which loads a webpage with six logos. If you can't see one, or any of the logos in the top row, then you are almost certainly infected by Conficker or other malware. This is because the Conficker worm (or other malware) will attempt to block any connections to anti-virus software company servers.


Stewart originally hosted the "eye chart" on his own server; it is now hosted by the Conficker Working Group, which is led by Microsoft and a number of anti-virus/ computer security software companies.

I was quite amused that Stewart had the opportunity for a little Unix advocacy. The other test images on the "eye chart" are the logos for Openbsd, Linux, and FreeBsd, and are linked to their respective websites. The worm, BTW, only infects Windows boxes.

If you suspect an infection, try using any of the repair tools from the Conficker Working Group.

In related news, there was some Conficker-themed geek humour going around on April 1.

(Thanks F-Secure)

Task Manager mysteriously disabled

An In.Tech reader complained that his Task Manager has been mysteriously disabled:

Hi, I keep my Dell laptop updated in every way possible, and I have a legal copy of Norton Internet Security 2006.

However, I found out not too long ago, whenever I press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, the Task Manager doesn’t appear but instead I get a message saying... “Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator.”

I’m the only user on my laptop and I didn’t assign any guest or other user! How do I fix this?

J. Tai
via e-mail

On occasion, when we come across PCs infected with a virus, spyware, trojan, or other types of malware, we've found that the Task Manager has been disabled.

Malware creators like to disable Task Manager to make system troubleshooting difficult, and also to make it hard to remove their malware.

Ramesh Srinivasan, a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) covers this
issue on his website at http://snipurl.com/jk50.

“If this restriction was enabled in your system without you doing anything or without your knowledge, then it’s highly likely that a Virus has blocked the usage of Task Manager in your system by enabling the DisableTaskMgr policy via the registry.” Srinivasan notes.


He suggests that “you perform a thorough checkup of your system immediately”. The steps listed below will unblock the Task Manager, but will not remove malware (if any) from your system:

1. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.

2. Navigate to the following registry branch: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ System.

3. In the right pane, you should see a line called DisableTaskMgr.

4. Double click on DisableTaskMgr and change Value Data to 0 (zero) to re-enable Task Manager.

5. Close Regedit.

By the way, you can also launch Task Manager by using this keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+Esc.