If you were an Internet crook, the following item would be music to your ears: A zero-day flaw--a security hole with no fix available before attacks could be launched--exists in Adobe Reader and Acrobat, and can be exploited by a poisoned PDF file in an attempt to take over a vulnerable computer.

As Symantec reported in February, crooks have hit the flaw with small-scale attacks that e-mail PDF attachments to specific targets. Adobe says a patch should be ready for version 9 of both programs by the time you read this, with fixes for earlier versions to follow. Read Adobe's alert and get a link to the eventual fixes.

There's some serious FUD out there right now about what the Conficker worm will do on April 1. But according to those in the know, you probably don't have to worry.

According to Joe Stewart, a security researcher at SecureWorks who knows what's what when it comes to malware, "there will be no April 1st outbreak." Clean PCs won't suddenly melt down from a new Conficker infection. All that will happen, Stewart writes, is that the worm will begin to use a new trick that gives it a better chance of getting around existing defenses that attempt to prevent it from updating. The ability has been around since a new Conficker variant came out earlier this month, but it won't activate until April 1st, Stewart says.

Put another way, if you're not infected on April 1st, nothing will happen to you. If you are infected with Conficker, it will attempt to update itself. That update could theoretically contain instructions to do something drastic, like wiping out a hard drive, but that's pretty unlikely. Conficker's creators stand to gain nothing by such a destructive act, and malware these days is all about gain.