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'Hackers could gain total access to computer systems on April 1st'

Businesses and individual users across the globe have been warned that hackers could gain access to millions of computers once the Conficker virus reactivates on April 1st.

With the worm having already racked up a long list of high-profile victims, including the computer systems of the British Houses of Parliament, since first emerging back in November, experts have now warned that the latest version of the virus has been programmed to remain dormant until the start of next month.

While computer security experts have been unable to determine how exactly it will attack as many as 15 million PCs, they have predicted a 'worst case scenario' of criminals gaining complete access to systems and all the sensitive information they hold.

Mikko Hypponen, a virus expert from F-Secure, told the Sun: "It is scary thinking about how much control a hacker could have over all these computers. They would have access to millions of machines.

"I think the machines that are already infected might do something new on April 1st."

Following the most recent round of attacks, which affected up to nine million machines, Microsoft put up a $250,000 reward for information leading to the identification of the Conficker virus authors.

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