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quantumaniac: The Virus That Might Kill Your Computer on July 9th (And How to Stop It!) It sounds like one of those annoying chain e-mails that show up from technically-challenged acquaintances: “The FBI Will Take Your Computer Offline July 9 If It Has A Virus! Visit This Site Immediately To Check!! Forward This To Everyone You Know!!!” But the Federal Bureau of Investigation really has posted a warning on its site about the risk of “DNSChanger” malware, which really will result in your computer getting disconnected from the Web on July 9, if you don’t clean it up. The story began last November when the Bureau announced it had busted a four-year-old Estonia-based conspiracy. The suspects had infected about 4 million computers — some 500,000 in the United States — with malware called DNSChanger (also referred to as Alureon) that diverted victims to scam sites. This “rootkit” malware was usually delivered as a fake download for Windows or Mac OS X that then silently altered the Domain Name System (DNS) settings on computers and even some wireless routers. That’s about the most serious compromise an Internet-connected machine can suffer; when DNS stops correctly translating domain names like discovery.com to machine-readable Internet Protocol addresses like 63.240.215.85, you no longer know what sites you’re dealing with. But once an infected machine had been cuffed to DNSChanger’s rogue servers, shutting it off would effectively unplug it from the Internet. To give unaware victims time to clean up their systems, the FBI secured a court order requiring the Internet Systems Consortium, a non-profit Net-architecture firm, to take over and sanitize those servers. But all bad things must end; after one stay of execution, ISC is now set to turn off the DNSChanger servers on July 9. At that point, any infected machine will only be able to connect to numerical IP addresses, essentially, a rotary-dial version of the Internet. Early advice on checking for a DNSChanger infection required a fair degree of technical skill, but now you just need to be able to read one line of text or know the difference between green and red. Visit www.dns-ok.us; if you see a green background to the image on that page and the words “DNS Resolution = GREEN,” you’re safe. (Your Internet provider may also offer a similar service; Comcast subscribers, for example, can check their computers at amibotted.comcast.net.) If you see otherwise, you have a month and change to fix the problem. Since DNSChanger can disable security programs, you may not be able to do this the easy way, by clicking a “scan” button in your anti-virus app. You can try specialized DNSChanger-removal tools from such firms as SecureMac or run general-purpose anti-rootkit software like MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware or Kaspersky Labs’ TDSSKiller. The DNS Changer Working Group, created by Internet-security experts to help clean up the problem, has also set up a page with links to manual malware-cleanup instructions from Microsoft and others. In a worst-case scenario, you may need to reinstall your computer’s operating system and software from scratch, using either the discs that came with the computer or the recovery partition on its hard drive.  But that still beats having a computer that can only navigate the Internet by numbers. So if you have friends or family members online who might not know to check for this problem, please forward this post to them. But hold the exclamation points.

quantumaniac:

The Virus That Might Kill Your Computer on July 9th (And How to Stop It!)

It sounds like one of those annoying chain e-mails that show up from technically-challenged acquaintances: “The FBI Will Take Your Computer Offline July 9 If It Has A Virus! Visit This Site Immediately To Check!! Forward This To Everyone You Know!!!”

But the Federal Bureau of Investigation really has posted a warning on its site about the risk of “DNSChanger” malware, which really will result in your computer getting disconnected from the Web on July 9, if you don’t clean it up.

The story began last November when the Bureau announced it had busted a four-year-old Estonia-based conspiracy. The suspects had infected about 4 million computers — some 500,000 in the United States — with malware called DNSChanger (also referred to as Alureon) that diverted victims to scam sites.

This “rootkit” malware was usually delivered as a fake download for Windows or Mac OS X that then silently altered the Domain Name System (DNS) settings on computers and even some wireless routers. That’s about the most serious compromise an Internet-connected machine can suffer; when DNS stops correctly translating domain names like discovery.com to machine-readable Internet Protocol addresses like 63.240.215.85, you no longer know what sites you’re dealing with.

But once an infected machine had been cuffed to DNSChanger’s rogue servers, shutting it off would effectively unplug it from the Internet. To give unaware victims time to clean up their systems, the FBI secured a court order requiring the Internet Systems Consortium, a non-profit Net-architecture firm, to take over and sanitize those servers.

But all bad things must end; after one stay of execution, ISC is now set to turn off the DNSChanger servers on July 9. At that point, any infected machine will only be able to connect to numerical IP addresses, essentially, a rotary-dial version of the Internet.

Early advice on checking for a DNSChanger infection required a fair degree of technical skill, but now you just need to be able to read one line of text or know the difference between green and red. Visit www.dns-ok.us; if you see a green background to the image on that page and the words “DNS Resolution = GREEN,” you’re safe. (Your Internet provider may also offer a similar service; Comcast subscribers, for example, can check their computers at amibotted.comcast.net.)

If you see otherwise, you have a month and change to fix the problem. Since DNSChanger can disable security programs, you may not be able to do this the easy way, by clicking a “scan” button in your anti-virus app. You can try specialized DNSChanger-removal tools from such firms as SecureMac or run general-purpose anti-rootkit software like MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware or Kaspersky Labs’ TDSSKiller.

The DNS Changer Working Group, created by Internet-security experts to help clean up the problem, has also set up a page with links to manual malware-cleanup instructions from Microsoft and others. In a worst-case scenario, you may need to reinstall your computer’s operating system and software from scratch, using either the discs that came with the computer or the recovery partition on its hard drive. 

But that still beats having a computer that can only navigate the Internet by numbers. So if you have friends or family members online who might not know to check for this problem, please forward this post to them. But hold the exclamation points.

(via holden421)

2012.04.27  2:22pm  ∞

Post Notes

  1. marrianeelizabeth reblogged this from quantumaniac
  2. serverdatarecovery reblogged this from quantumaniac and added:
    Did you experience a virus? Get your files back by contacting hard drive recovery professionals!
  3. thelovelyscientist reblogged this from quantumaniac and added:
    I wouldn’t typically waste your time, but this is kinda important. Probably worth a read.
  4. mariliisa reblogged this from quantumaniac
  5. qu4ntumth3ory reblogged this from quantumaniac
  6. turdlebunz reblogged this from shakarakababi
  7. shakarakababi reblogged this from oldmanyellsatcloud
  8. gerypratama reblogged this from trollception
  9. biujee reblogged this from quantumaniac
  10. sollux-card-captor reblogged this from valgeliilia
  11. paragonofevil reblogged this from oldmanyellsatcloud
  12. w-the-idiot reblogged this from quantumaniac and added:
    uh. what? it’s like the whole internet is gonna be lifted upside down and shaken out in july. wth?
  13. twinarmageddonseheheh reblogged this from gallowscalibratorh3h3
  14. kubiko reblogged this from fireheart14
  15. sambarkers reblogged this from kawaiinotsukematsukeru
  16. cutieroxy reblogged this from viktorthebear
  17. viktorthebear reblogged this from kuranosukeshiraishi
  18. kuranosukeshiraishi reblogged this from tessaracts
  19. xiporthos reblogged this from quantumaniac
  20. tessaracts reblogged this from spastacus
  21. sleeplesschelovek reblogged this from rukomi
  22. ikusabam reblogged this from abductedbytricksters
  23. abductedbytricksters reblogged this from bruceclint
  24. bruceclint reblogged this from dulcedoom
  25. indigo-inferno reblogged this from quantumaniac
  26. haamer reblogged this from skaterboytae
  27. looz-y reblogged this from kamika-star
  28. hd-glasses reblogged this from mygympartnerisadoitsu

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