Will you lose your Internet on July 9th?

Hobbes · May 2012

Last November, when the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers, the agency realized this may become an issue.
"We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because ... if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet service," said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. "The average user would open up Internet Explorer and get `page not found' and think the Internet is broken."
On the night of the arrests, the agency brought in Paul Vixie, chairman and founder of Internet Systems Consortium, to install two Internet servers to take the place of the truckload of impounded rogue servers that infected computers were using. Federal officials planned to keep their servers online until March, giving everyone opportunity to clean their computers.
But it wasn't enough time.
A federal judge in New York extended the deadline until July.
Now, said Grasso, "the full court press is on to get people to address this problem." And it's up to computer users to check their PCs.

You visit this site DCWG | DNS Changer Working Group for more info or http://www.dns-ok.us/ to check your PC

GTA Poker · May 2012

green

Hobbes · May 2012

I imagine when I check my kids' pcs, I won't be so lucky

jdAA88 · May 2012

green

Milo · May 2012

Green . . .

SuperNed · May 2012

LOL, that whole 'better check your computer now' has all the makings of a suspect virus in itself. I'll pass and pretty sure I won't hear anything else about it

Hobbes · May 2012

SuperNed wrote: »

LOL, that whole 'better check your computer now' has all the makings of a suspect virus in itself. I'll pass and pretty sure I won't hear anything else about it

Nah, it's legit.

It's like over 500k computers.

compuease · July 2012

Just gonna bump this one more time.. This is a very real issue coming up on us July 9th..
Canadian valid site to check. All green is good.

DNSChanger Malware Checker - Détecteur de maliciel DNSChanger

Detail info below..

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Thousands of Canadians could be among the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who might lose Internet access on July 9.

That's the day the FBI will shut down all the "clean servers" it set up to combat a massive hacking operation. In November, the agency says it busted a group of cyber criminals in Estonia who had successfully downloaded malware onto an estimated four million computers in more than 100 countries. "DNS Changer" would turn off virus updates and send consumers to fraudulent websites.

In its indictment, the FBI estimated the gang made at least $14 million in "ill-gotten gains" through what it called click hijacking and advertisement replacement fraud.

Instead of shutting down the rogue servers, the FBI replaced the servers with "clean" ones and redirected users, who were generally none the wiser.

The replacement servers are being shut down Monday, and anyone still infected with the malware will lose their Internet access.

The FBI said there are still about 360,000 infected computers in a dozen countries, including Canada — but there is a fix. The DNS Changer Working Group (dcwg.org), established by American government agencies, can detect the malware and provide steps to eliminate it. Canadians can also visit the Canadian Internet Registration Authority's anti-DNS website at dns-ok.ca.