Thousands Could Lose Internet Monday After Malware Attack

[gilliam]

Internet users scanning their Twitter feeds or Facebook accounts Sunday might want to add one more quick click to check their computer for malware.

Thousands of people around the country whose computers were infected with malicious software more than a year ago faced the possibility of not being able to get online after midnight EDT.

At 12:01 a.m. EDT, the Federal Bureau of Investigation planned to shut down the Internet servers set up as a temporary safety net to keep infected computers online for the past eight months. The court order the agency obtained to keep the servers running expired, and it wasn’t renewed.

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303567704577514500715333234.html

You can check to see if your computer is clean by going here:
dns-ok.us/

More information here
dcwg.org/
forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS

 

[austenbosten]

Internet users scanning their Twitter feeds or Facebook accounts Sunday might want to add one more quick click to check their computer for malware.

Thousands of people around the country whose computers were infected with malicious software more than a year ago faced the possibility of not being able to get online after midnight EDT.

At 12:01 a.m. EDT, the Federal Bureau of Investigation planned to shut down the Internet servers set up as a temporary safety net to keep infected computers online for the past eight months. The court order the agency obtained to keep the servers running expired, and it wasn’t renewed.

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303567704577514500715333234.html

You can check to see if your computer is clean by going here:
dns-ok.us/

More information here
dcwg.org/
forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS

I will never understand black hat hackers. :nope:

 

[Dale_M]

I will never understand black hat hackers. :nope:

I am not sure their motivation is any different from ordinary con men. They exploit the naivete and trust of their victims in order to make an easy profit.

Here is a bit of background on the current situation

DNSChanger is a Trojan that surfaced in 2007 and infected millions of machines. The malware would redirect computers to hacker-created Websites, where cyber-criminals sold at least $14 million in advertisements. DNSChanger also prevented computers from updating or using anti-virus software, leaving them vulnerable to even more malicious software.

Last November, in one of the biggest cybersecurity takedowns ever, the FBI arrested six Estonian nationals that allegedly ran the clickjacking fraud, and seized the rogue DNS servers where infected users were being redirected. The FBI has put up surrogate servers in place of the malicious ones, but only temporarily.

The FBI originally planned to shut down the malicious servers in March, but last month a federal judge ordered an extension to July to give users, businesses and governments more time to deal with DNS Changer. As of February, half of all Fortune 500 companies owned computers infected with DNS Changer, according security firm Tacoma. The DNSChanger Working Group estimates that more than 350,000 devices are still infected.

pcworld.com/article/254279/fbi_steps_up_internet_doomsday_awareness_malware_campaign.html

That news article was published in April, so the numbers of infected computers has been halved since then. But I am afraid that the persons who are still infected are those who are least aware of internet security matters and they will be totally baffled when they lose their connection tomorrow.

 

[Nine_Two]

You can’t force internet safety on people.

Hopefully those who lose internet will be instructed on how to get rid of it by their ISPs.

 

[curlycool89]

That news article was published in April, so the numbers of infected computers has been halved since then. But I am afraid that the persons who are still infected are those who are least aware of internet security matters and they will be totally baffled when they lose their connection tomorrow.

I see it as a justified barrier to entry.

If you want to use the internet (to allow your computer to interact with other computers over TCP/IP), then you have to at a minimum do a certain amount of maintenance and TLC. I see it as no different then a situation with a car. If your muffler is hanging loose and banging the road, then you can’t drive it.

The internet should not be the wild west where you can just do anything. You have a have a certain amount of understanding about how things work. People seem to loose all their survival senses on the internet.
If some guy peddling snake-oil wants to give you a free lawn sign, do you take it? Of course not, so why do people do that exact thing on the internet (Downloading screen savers and mouse icons. Most of them are viruses or malware, you should never download them)?
If some person tells you “I sense you have a cold, you should try my random natural health product”, you don’t buy it! So why do people do the exact same thing if some random website tells them “Your computer has viruses/spyware. Download this program to remove it” (all of those programs are either malware or just fraudulent and they want your money)?

This is not hard stuff. If you take a little bit of caution when it comes to the internet, you can reduce your chances of ever getting a virus or malware or spyware to nearly 0. Don’t download random stuff, don’t read and forward chain emails, and don’t open email attachments if you don’t know where they came from. And never trust anti-virus makers: they’re businesses and they want to make money (Kaspersky especially has been big on the fear-mongering lately). A free virus scanner like AVG for Windows or even Microsoft Security Essentials will be sufficient. But again, the best things to do to avoid viruses/etc are behavioural.

 

[austenbosten]

I am not sure their motivation is any different from ordinary con men. They exploit the naivete and trust of their victims in order to make an easy profit.

The problem is most hackers do not make a buck, unless they are working for a corporation or some government. Most hackers do it to be malicious and L337 ism skillz.