DNSChanger Didn't Change Much
I'm chuckling as I write this, because if you truly did get hit by this particular virus - the DNSChanger Virus - you may not even be online to read this article!
Turns out that quite a while ago, the FBI (the FBI??) last November (2011) caught a hacking ring based in Estonia which had infected about 4 million computers worldwide with malware dubbed DNSChanger. The reason it was called that was that the virus downloaded a rootkit along with the apparent download (maybe a piece of software you wanted) that altered the DNS (Domain Name System) settings on the computer it was infecting.
Because some of the computers that were infected were servers, and they were linked to the Internet, there are serious repercussions from simply "banning" them from the web. So the FBI worked silently, in the background, with the Internet Systems Consortium, a nonprofit net architecture firm, to take over and clean up the infected servers.
But as of July 9, any still-infected servers will have been shut down -ousted from the Internet. So you may have either not been able to connect, or you may have seen outages due to a favorite location, or even your ISP, going down.
The thing is, there was very little chatter about this prior to the event - very little in the way of viral warnings to go and check your computer for the virus, your company's server, your client's servers, and so forth, to be sure that your little corner of the Internet world was safe, sound, and secure.
Still, the event, much like the supposed big disaster of 2000, seems to have passed without much fanfare. A couple of people complained that favorite gaming sites were unreachable, but that's about all that I heard. I noticed nothing myself, and the news stories were all pretty dull.
So, unless something unexpected happens soon, the July 9 End of the World was another boy who cried wolf.
I'll just keep hoping a real wolf never shows up!
Turns out that quite a while ago, the FBI (the FBI??) last November (2011) caught a hacking ring based in Estonia which had infected about 4 million computers worldwide with malware dubbed DNSChanger. The reason it was called that was that the virus downloaded a rootkit along with the apparent download (maybe a piece of software you wanted) that altered the DNS (Domain Name System) settings on the computer it was infecting.
Because some of the computers that were infected were servers, and they were linked to the Internet, there are serious repercussions from simply "banning" them from the web. So the FBI worked silently, in the background, with the Internet Systems Consortium, a nonprofit net architecture firm, to take over and clean up the infected servers.
But as of July 9, any still-infected servers will have been shut down -ousted from the Internet. So you may have either not been able to connect, or you may have seen outages due to a favorite location, or even your ISP, going down.
The thing is, there was very little chatter about this prior to the event - very little in the way of viral warnings to go and check your computer for the virus, your company's server, your client's servers, and so forth, to be sure that your little corner of the Internet world was safe, sound, and secure.
Still, the event, much like the supposed big disaster of 2000, seems to have passed without much fanfare. A couple of people complained that favorite gaming sites were unreachable, but that's about all that I heard. I noticed nothing myself, and the news stories were all pretty dull.
So, unless something unexpected happens soon, the July 9 End of the World was another boy who cried wolf.
I'll just keep hoping a real wolf never shows up!
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