SAN FRANCISCO, March 31 /PRNewswire/ --

nCircle, the leader in automated security and configuration auditing solutions, today made available checks that will immediately and definitively identify systems that have been infected by the Conficker worm. These new checks follow those released by nCircle last October that identified the existence of the vulnerability itself. Together, the checks ensure that nCircle customers can easily and automatically identify any vulnerable systems as well as any system that is already compromised by the Conficker worm.

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The Conficker worm was first released in late 2008 and by late January 2009, infections had topped 15 million systems. Security researchers have discovered that on April 1, Conficker will change how it updates itself, making it extremely difficult to mitigate and protect unpatched systems. Conficker may also take advantage of April 1 to wreak more havoc on compromised systems, as have many worms in the past. Enterprises should take immediate action to ensure that all systems are patched and that any compromised systems are remediated.

The Conficker worm takes specific action to disable anti-virus programs and other host countermeasures. It cannot, however, disable or interfere with nCircle's agentless scanning solutions since there is no agent to tamper with or disable. nCircle solutions ensure each system is audited and administrators are alerted to any changes or problems, including disabled anti-virus.

How nCircle can help: - nCircle solutions can scan systems to ensure that the vulnerability required for the Conficker worm to compromise a system (MS08-067) has been patched. - nCircle solutions can scan systems to identify any that have been compromised by the Conficker worm. - nCircle solutions can scan systems automatically and regularly to ensure operating systems and applications are generally up to date, including service packs and software and security updates. - nCircle solutions can scan the network and produce a list of systems that remain vulnerable to the Conficker worm. - nCircle solutions can scan the network to ensure that anti-virus is installed, running, and up to date on all specified systems.

Sincere thanks to Dan Kaminsky, Felix Leder, Tillman Werner, Rich Mogull, Adrian Lane, and the members of the Conficker Working Group, said Sheldon Malm, Director, Security Research and Development, nCircle. This is the kind of collaboration from the Security Community that gives customers an edge over the bad guys.

For more information, please visit http://www.ncircle.com/conficker.

About nCircle Suite360

nCircle provides the world's most comprehensive suite of solutions for agentless security and configuration auditing. nCircle's solutions combine the broadest discovery of networked systems and their operating systems, applications, vulnerabilities and configurations with advanced analytics to help enterprises reduce security risk and achieve compliance. nCircle's solutions includes IP360(TM) for vulnerability and risk management, WebApp360(TM) for web application vulnerability auditing, Configuration Compliance Manager (CCM)(TM) for configuration auditing and file integrity monitoring, Certified PCI Scan Service(TM) for on-demand self-service PCI scanning, and Security Intelligence Hub(TM) for IT governance, risk and compliance (ITGRC) reporting and analytics.

About nCircle

nCircle is the leading provider of automated security and compliance auditing solutions. More than 4,000 enterprises, government agencies and service providers around the world rely on nCircle's proactive solutions to manage and reduce security risk and achieve compliance on their networks. nCircle has won numerous awards for growth, innovation, customer satisfaction and technology leadership. nCircle is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with regional offices throughout the United States and in London and Toronto. Additional information about nCircle is available at www.ncircle.com.

nCircle is a registered trademark of nCircle Network Security, Inc. All other registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

Shelley Boose of Shev Rush PR, +1-408-398-6987, for nCircle