Washington: The US Department of Homeland Security released a tool to detect whether a computer is infected by the Conficker worm.
The department, in a statement, said the detection tool for the Conficker worm, also known as DownAdUP, had been developed by the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT).
"While tools have existed for individual users, this is the only free tool -- and the most comprehensive one -- available for enterprises like federal and state government and private sector networks to determine the extent to which their systems are infected by this worm," said Mischel Kwon, director US-CERT.
"Our experts at US-CERT are working around the clock to increase our capabilities to address the cyber risk to our nation's critical networks and systems, both from this threat and all others," added Kwon.
The worm is suspected to have infected million of computers running the Windows operating system and Windows maker Microsoft has offered a USD 250,000 bounty for those responsible for the worm.
US-CERT recommended that Windows users apply Microsoft security patch MS08-067 to help provide protection against the worm.
The patch is designed to prevent an attacker from remotely taking control of an infected computer system and installing additional malicious software.