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FBI states 350,000 could lose Internet in July

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We noticed a few articles about this just today. Apparently the FBI took down servers by international criminals who had infected millions of computers with a DNS Changer for an online advertising scam that netted the criminals millions.

The FBI put up DNS servers to replace those setup by the criminal. However, these FBI servers will be brought down July 9, 2012 and an estimated 350,000 will no longer be able to resolve DNS on their infected computers.

They suggest “To check and clean computers, try: http://www.dcwg.org”

See:
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/hundreds-thousands-lose-internet-july-16184005

http://www.kgw.com/news/business/Many-may-lose-Internet-in-July-when-FBI-shuts-down-virus-screen-148307275.html

Topic

Fact or Fiction??

In reply to FBI states 350,000 could lose Internet in July

I’ve read multiple articles regarding this issue……Somehow I don’t feel comfortable allowing a strange website to have free reign over my PC……Are there safer alternatives available to scan my system for this threat?

I would suspect a current virus scanner would know about it

In reply to Fact or Fiction??

You can also check your DNS settings.
If you have a router, you are safe, your router handles your DNS.
If you are connected directly to the internet. Check your current DNS (start/run type “cmd” and in the dos window type “ipconfig”) and verify against the DNS address your ISP provides. If your ISP doesn’t list their DNS server address, phone them and ask them for the DNS IP address so you can verify.

Otherwise, you can just change your DNS to one of the free ones like google DNS or Open DNS.
Google:
https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/

OpenDNS:
https://www.opendns.com/opendns-ip-addresses/

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