You may have noticed a news resurfacing on every media station lately: almost 70,000 of US internet users were expected to lose their internet connection on Monday July 9th, 2012.
News Flashback: in November 2011 we were all warned by FBI about DNSChanger, a malicious software designed to have your browsing experience go haywire.
What is a DNSChanger and Why Should you Care?
When we browse internet, we use human-friendly web domain names. When our computers communicate to the hosting servers, they actually look up the numeric IP addresses. DNS (Domain Name System) is an Internet service that converts user-friendly domain names into the numerical Internet protocol (IP) addresses so computers can talk to each other. DNS servers are operated by your ISP – Internet service provider, such as AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable & RoadRunner, Verizon, etc., and are a critical part of your computer’s network configuration. DNS Servers enable us to access websites, send e-mail, use apps – get to the Cloud of Internet services.
By controlling DNS, a criminal can fraudulently redirect your internet connection to rogue servers and in turn to a malicious website that can infect your computer and your network further, or affect your browsing experience in some other haywire way.
When the issue was first discovered FVI had the Internet System Consortium setup the intermediate, temporary servers so computer owners can clean up their computers without loosing their internet connection. Back in 2011 FBI listed a step-by-step guide on the DNSChanger subject.
But all things must come to end – initially scheduled to be shut down in March of 2012, those emergency servers were be shut down this past Monday, July 9, 2012. If your computer was affected by DNSChanger, you may not have been able to connect to the Internet then. And if you are reading this article now, you were either not affected by this nasty malware, or you took corrective measures by now.
Fore more up-to-date information The DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG) has additional details and resources that let you Detect, Fix and Protect your computer from the DNS Changer and it’s kind in the future.
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