The National Business Review predicts it will be “the biggest [computer] virus attack the world has ever seen.” (Chris Keall, Thursday January 22 2009).

Our personal or business computers may be among the estimated ten million computers already infected with the Conficker C worm, which is set for activation on April Fool’s Day. The virus is so feared that Microsoft has placed a $250,000 bounty on the heads of the malware malfeasants whose brilliant if twisted masterminds are behind Conficker.

But wait. It gets worse. Conficker C spreads through peer-to-peer files and even USB thumb drives. It can render security software and firewalls impotent while blocking patches and automatic updates. In nontechnical terms, it can probably take computers hostage and hold them in solitary confinement, isolating them from sources of help and repair.

Unfortunately no one except the perpetrators knows exactly what damage Conficker C will do. We know only that on Wednesday, bad guys at a secret location are likely to take control of all infected computers and have their way with them. Their motivation is assumed to be similar to that of the corporate and government villains who brought down our economy: greed. The big difference is that while they are equally immoral, the Conficker guys are not incompetent.

The good-ish news is that techies have developed probable protection. Not being a techie myself, I imagine this as a giant condom for hard drives not yet infected as well as a morning-after pill for millions of computers into which Conficker C has already burrowed and where it awaits its horrible mutant birth on April 1st.

Although Conficker’s megalomaniacal developers probably aren’t focused on home PCs, if the slick worm launches in our PCs, hackers can steal our passwords, banking information, and other confidential information.

Luckily, personal disaster is not necessarily inevitable. If we’re super vigilant before April 1st about downloading all the latest Windows patches and about making sure our antivirus and spyware programs are up to date, our own computers are probably safe. The most useful article about how to protect our PCs that I found is at http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=9739. After reading it, I relaxed about my free Avast security program, and I downloaded updates at the Microsoft site and then installed free spyware.

But large networks are expected to be at ground zero on April 1^st. If the Conficker’s perverted perps take control of large government, business, and financial networks (as some articles Google found predict), the result could be too ghastly to contemplate. And such disparate victims as the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament and the Houston Municipal Courts have already found Conficker C in their IT systems.

The first Conficker worm (Conficker A) appeared in October 2008. Conficker B arrived in December, but experts think these Conficker worms were child’s play compared to the new sibling. Conficker worms are unique in that they take advantage of a Microsoft flaw that Microsoft has patched and continues to patch. Meanwhile the virus looks for computers that haven’t been patched effectively.

Suspense builds as April Fool’s Day nears, because no one knows what the virus will do (if anything), and FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) around this possible event are causing an uproar that was only compounded when Symantec warned that even searching for information about Conficker could attract it to your computer. Boy, if that’s true, am I in trouble.

And just one more thing: Mac users, no smug smiles, please.