Conflicker. Scramble, Panic and Spending; It’s Embarrassing

On April 1, the Conflicker worm was supposed to do something and the news media hyped it up. It didn’t do anything. It is now but that’s not making the news. Real tech stories rarely make the news; they’re too boring.

I have to say that I’m upset with the scramble, panic and spending that occurred. Many IT companies saw this as an opportunity to make their clients spend money. They used the media flamed panic to fatten their own pockets. It’s embarrassing.  IT departments in larger companies fanned the flames of panic too, by working over-time, unplugging computers and not allowing remote workers to work during the “crisis”. That’s embarrassing too.

Why? Because it means that they weren’t doing their jobs. Our job in IT is prevention. The patch for the security issue that Conflicker uses has been available for nearly a full year. Every IT person that panicked is an IT person that KNOWS they’ve been slacking and putting the network at risk. That’s unacceptable.

I’m going to ask you for a favor now. If you know of a company that got Conflicker, if you know of a company whose IT person sent them into a panic over Conflicker, please refer them to us. We could use a few new customers and those are businesses that could use an IT professional that respects their business enough to care for it every day.