Conficker Eye Chart: The Easiest Way To Check for Conficker Infections

Conficker, also known as Downadup or Kido has been one of the most widespread worms recently. There are numerous symptoms, and if you're not a PC expert it can be hard to interpret those symptoms and be sure what has happened. Fortunately there is a fast, easy test that can help determine if you have a Conficker infection, cleverly known as the Conficker Eye Chart. Just a quick look and comparison with the explanation on the page and you've got a good idea whether or not Conficker may have infected your PC.

The Conficker virus blocks your computer's ability to connect to more than 100 anti-virus and security software sites on the Web. The eye chart has a group of graphics displayed on the page. The graphics are hosted on various web sites, including some of the sites blocked by Conficker variants. If your Web browser can't connect to some or all of those sites, those graphics from sites you can't reach won't show up in your browser.

There are several graphics from other sites unrelated to Conficker's interference with your PC's network connections. Those are displayed as a comparison and verification that you can connect to the Internet generally, and that your browser is displaying images properly. If you can't see any of the top row of graphics, that suggests an infection by the Conficker C variant or higher. If you can see the SecureWorks graphic but not the other two, that's likely an infection by the Conficker A or Conficker B variant of the worm.

As you may realize, not being able to see some or all of the graphics isn't a sure bet that you have been infected by Conficker. There may be other reasons, or possibly other viruses. Always proceed to use a good virus scanning and removal tool and fix whatever vulnerabilities you had that permitted any infection in the first place.

When you need a quick check for the presence of Conficker, this is a very fast test. I hope that you never are infected by Conficker. For more anti-virus information, check out my articles on how to protect against the Conficker worm, how to remove the Conficker worm from infected computers, how computer viruses are made, what computer worms are, and the differences between worms and viruses.