A computer virus that has wormed its way into millions of PCs was activated today... but with little effect. The Conficker virus, which has infected up to 15million computers since last autumn, has so far lurked harmlessly - but experts were braced for it to change the way it operated first thing this morning.
The 'worm' started looking for new instructions on what it should do next by scanning 50,000 different websites at midnight last night.
Experts feared the virus was about to be used by its creators to control an army' of 15 million 'zombie PCs' to steal bank details, send spam emails or even crash a major website. But so far, nothing untoward has taken place. 'Conficker has activated,' said Patrik Runald, chief security adviser at F-Secure. 'So far nothing has actually happened'