Internet Shutdown On July 9th 2012 is making headlines across the world. DNS Changer Malware attack is one of the most feared topic for millions of internet users. Here are some important details.
Check out and make sure your system is not affected by the DNS Changer Malware. It is time for you to have a look at whether your PC is under the attack of the villainous Malware. Four million Windows PCs including as many as 64,000 in the U.S, India. are to go dark on Monday, July 9, 2012 as part of defending the malicious virus. Well, there are multiple ways on the web to verify whether your system is affected by the Malware, which has been there since 2007.
So Users are therefore advised to check whether their computers or routers use one of the FBI-listed IP addresses for DNS queries, well before the server shutdown, by visiting
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DNS Changer infection – Check your system online to ensure uninterupted connectivity!!!
What is DNS Changer ?
DNS Changer is a severe malware attack against Windows PCs from a set of hackers, who try to make money from online ads through it. Seven hackers – six Estonians and a Russian – are behind the malware attack, which was started back in 2007. Since then, they have been attempting to hack Windows PCs across the world to get clicks for their online ads. As per a last year indictment from the U.S. Attorney General’s Office in New York, the hackers have the goal of generating money through automatic impressions and clicks for their online ads.
The name DNS Changer also stems from the job the hackers are doing with the malware. The virus will automatically change the DNSes of the websites you search on your PC to their sites. That is, as per ABC News (thanks to FBI), “if your computer was infected and you clicked a link to go to Netflix, you would wind up at Budget Match.” The practice is simply called ‘click hijacking.’ Well, put it simply, it is a habit of changing the domains of sites you search to the wish of the hackers, who can make some money out of it.
Internet shutdown on July 9 :
As viruses go, DNS Changer appeared fairly harmless – initiated in 2007, it simply generated fraudulent clicks on adverts, and made its Estonian creators something under £10million. Infected computers accessed the web slightly more slowly, but their users could be forgiven for not even noticing they had a so-called “botnet infection”, let alone realising that they were aiding a criminal gang.
In shutting down the virus, however, the FBI opened a can of worms that reveals what one analyst calls “a weakness in the internet’s infrastructure”. Dan Brown, director of security research at web firm Bit9, says that worse still the FBI’s “band-aid approach” mirrors how security as a whole has evolved on the web. “Generally,” he says, “it has preferred band-aids over real solutions”.
The problem arises because DNS Changer alters the directory that tells a computer the digital address to which intelligible sitenames refer: so rather than Amazon.co.uk leading you to the online bookshop, it redirects you to a fraudulent site, derives revenue from the invisible click and then passes you on to where you wanted to go. The FBI’s solution was simply to replace the criminal server, to tell people that something was wrong and to keep passing the traffic through. Now, however, it says that it can’t spend endless taxpayers’ money on maintaining that server. When it turns it off on Monday, some 350,000 people will lose their connections, of whom around 20,000 live in Britain.
“Security was not paid a great deal of attention while the Internet was first forming,” says Brown. “Now, years later, we’re stuck with the bill. It’s long been known what the fix for this particular problem is, but like kids eating vegetables, it’s something we put off as long as possible.”
It’s extremely unlikely that this could ever be repeated on the grand scale that would be required to make a major difference to the internet as a whole; but it is possible that the constant cat and mouse game of viruses versus security experts ontinues to cause a number of small problems that all add up to a decent sized headache. Even Apple has recently dropped the claim that its computers are immune from viruses. But nonetheless, the distributed nature of internet infrastructre lends itself to a secure, resilient network.
It’s worth emphasising, too, that those 500,000 affected by DNS Changer represent just a very tiny percentage of the 2 billion currently online. Even so, many of the 350,000 computers currently infected won’t know until Monday. And although preventable by any standard security software, there are still many users who aren’t sufficiently computer savvy to know how to keep themselves safe online. The “DNS Checker Page” allows users to see if they have the virus and to remove it, and has been largely responsible for the fall in the virus’s prevalence.
Brown suggests users should also limit future damage by using their computer’s “Guest” account for general surfing, so that any potential malware infections are confined and won’t have the ability to compromise individuals’ personal and sensitive data. But of course that would also deprive them of a host of the increasingly personalised features of modern computing. “Affected users will largely be relying on their ISPs or their technically-inclined nieces and cousins to help them figure out why they suddenly can’t access the Internet on July 9,” says Brown. For many, that basic technology advice is what keeps their increasingly vital computers online. In the future, more education than ever will be needed.
Indeed, it is a matter of concern for all Windows PC users in the world now. There have been discussion over the DNS Changer attack for a while. Some sources even reported that the World Wide Web is facing a crucial end by that day. That is not the case. The Monday internet blackout is just another step against the DNS Changer virus. By the way, you can just make sure whether your PC is not affected using the above noted sites.
Happy Hacking....
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