by Jay Scherder, KY3 News
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — It’s being called the “Internet Doomsday.” Thousands of computers could go offline this summer because of a virus.
According to InformationWeek, at its peak the malware was infecting machines used by half of all Fortune 500 companies as well as nearly half of government agencies. Since then things have calmed down considerably, but if your computer is still infected going into the summer, your computer could lose the internet.
“It infected about four million computers worldwide-about 500,000 in the United States,” said FBI Supervisory Special Agent Josh Nixon.
If the DNS Changer Malware is on your computer come July 9, you could lose your ability to go online.
“Anybody that hasn’t cleaned this malware off their computer will lose internet service,” said Nixon.
“Really what malware is trying to do is take control of your internet connection so it can send you to these rogue sites,” said ServiceWorld Systems Engineer Trent Jones.
It’s easy to get infected.
“It’s a link or a joke someone has sent you that you think you know where it’s coming from. All you need to do is click on that link or click on a picture and it’s embedded in there,” said Jones.
It all started with Operation Ghost Click carried out by the FBI.
“What this malware did, this DNS Server did, it redirected people’s computers to these rogue servers–from legitimate servers to rogue servers,” said Nixon.
A group of Estonians set up servers that directed people to fake websites that looked like real websites.
“What’s really dangerous about it is you can think you are actually going to your bank and it’s redirecting you to a server that’s not your bank,” said Jones.
They made nearly $14 million before the FBI shut their operation down. The Bureau set up clean servers so people wouldn’t lose internet service.
“They didn’t want to disrupt those individuals or businesses computer service,” said Nixon.
Now those servers are being taken offline, and if you are still infected with the DNS Changer Malware July 9, your internet access will cease to exist.
To check if your machine is infected – Check your DNS resolution here.
To be clear, your Internet service itself will be unaffected by the change: If your computer is infected with the DNSChanger malware, your Internet router will keep routing and any commands sent by your computer that aren’t DNS-related will still pass. The FBI isn’t shutting off Internet service to impacted machines, it’s just pulling the plug on a stopgap measure designed to bandaid the broken process currently facilitating DNS communication on infected machines.
Original herald-mail.com Article.