Internet Malware Shutdown Monday: Check computer online Advises FBI The Internet will shut down for thousands of people in the U.S. on Monday July 9. This is slated to happen at 12:01 a.m. when the FBI shuts down their DNS Changer servers. This will happen due to malware that was installed over a year ago in hundreds of thousands of computers world-wide without people knowing this. You could be one of the people to lose Internet connection if your computer is one of the computers infected with the malware.
According to My Mother Lode, this will leave an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 malware infected computers without Internet connection in the U.S. alone and over 300,000 worldwide when they shut the servers down Monday. The FBI advises that you check your computer for this malware before Monday's DNS Changer shutdown to avoid losing Internet connection.
The malware was planted in computers last year and the FBI shut down the hacker ring that did this. If they shut down the servers these criminals were using, the people they hacked would lose Internet connection. The FBI put in two clean servers and kept the hacked computers up and running until a fix was in place.
A fix is now in place, so the servers will get shut down Monday. The online website where you check to see if your computer is infected is part of this fix. If it is infected you'll be directed to another website which will quickly uninstall this malware.
The FBI has issued quite a few warnings and many have checked their computers on the website so far. Still many others have not. It’s easy and just one click onto the website will tell you if your computer is harboring the malware or not.
The infected computers belong to individuals, businesses and government agencies, such as NASA. This also includes Mac users. Make sure to check all your computers.
Check your computer here: http://www.dns-ok.us/
When you click on to the DCWG website, if you get a green background screen, your computer is fine. If a red background screen pops up this means the malware is detected on your computer. This is an easy fix, again set-up through the FBI. The website will direct you to this fix.
Fix your computer here: http://www.dcwg.org/fix">http://www.dcwg.org/fix
There’s no way to know if your computer was infected over a year ago, it might have just started to surf the web a little slower or it might have uninstalled your anti-virus software. This malware is hard to detect for the average computer user.
For more information on the DNS Changer visit the FBI website.
If you do not check your computer before the shut-down and your computer is infected, it will be a lengthy ordeal with your Internet provider to get you back online. Internet providers like Comcast have people in place for those calls on Monday.
If you just check your computer on the DCWG website today you’ll be spared trying to fix your computer over the phone with your provider because you won’t have internet access.
Reference: My Mother Lode, FBI Website, DCWG website
