A computer worm that could wreck havoc on computers on April 1st appears to be no April Fool's joke.
Experts say an estimated 9-million computers worldwide have already been infected with Conficker.
"This is one very dangerous virus because of the number of computers infected and because of the fact that you absolutely lose control of your computer," says Tom Keenan a computer expert in the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary.
Those in the computer industry say the worm could delete all files, collect personal information and shutdown websites.
Keenan says a person in China came across a vulnerability in Microsoft's software and someone else used that information to create the worm.
The worm was launched and has infected so many computers because the program makes copies of itself.
At this point, nobody knows what the worm will do on April 1st.
"The possibilities are endless because what the bad guys can do is make these machines run some computer program which can do anything," says John Aycock, an associate professor in the computer science department at the U of C.
The worm is hard for the layperson to detect but Keenan suggests trying to update your virus protection and patch your computer.
"Go to a site like McAfee.com or Microsoft.com and if you can get there, chances are you're safe. The reason is one of the effects of this thing is to disable your ability to go to any of those security sites," says Keenan.
Keenan says if you aren't able to access the security sites it's time to take your computer to an I.T. specialist.
Those with Linux and Apple operating systems are not affected by the worm.