Conficker: So what's the moral of the story?

1 April has come and gone and in the minds of many people the Conficker worm turned out to be a joke instead of the major internet security event that might have been envisioned. Was the hype good, or bad, and who is to blame?

"I'm not sure what to think," said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at BT. "In a sense, the whole Conficker thing just puts a name on a general problem."

The problem is that there are tons of malicious programs and attacks out there on the internet every day and people don't do enough to protect their computers, experts say. People need to be vigilant in patching their systems and updating their antivirus and other security software all the time, and not just when there is a virus outbreak. This isn't new at all.

Lots of other worms and botnets are doing real damage, experts say, but Conficker garnered the media attention because it was configured to activate on a certain date. The fact that the date happened to be April Fools' Day only lent to its mystique.

"You need something with a name and a date to make the news. Today, the problem is just as serious, but there's no news," Schneier said.

Dave Dittrich, an affiliate researcher at the University of Washington, added: "The focus on 1 April ignored the fact that malware is out there and it is not detected easily and it has counter measures,"

People tend to blame the security vendors for hyping viruses so they can sell more products. But in this case, everyone silicon.com sister site CNET News.com talked to about Conficker downplayed the digital disaster scenario and said things would likely be fairly quiet on 1 April, as they were.

Media culpability So were the media guilty of overhyping the story?