[real-eyes] hundreds of thousands could loose internet access in July
- From: "Duyahn Walker" <themusicman1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:40:39 -0500
Take a look and tell me what you think of this article. And I hope most of us
can do this with us using screen readers.
Duyahn
News and Opinion
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Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July
By Associated Press | Friday, April 20, 2012 |
http://www.bostonherald.com
|
Around the Nation
WASHINGTON - For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference
between
staying online and losing Internet connections this summer.
Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an
online
advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a
highly
unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government
computers
to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to
be
shut down.
The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner,
http://www.dcwg.org
, that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the
problem.
After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.
Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the
malicious
software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus
software,
making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.
Last November, the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a
hacker
ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected
computers.
"We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands
because ... if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and
threw
everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet
service,"
said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. "The average user would open
up
Internet Explorer and get 'page not found' and think the Internet is broken."
On the night of the arrests, the agency brought in Paul Vixie, chairman and
founder
of Internet Systems Consortium, to install two Internet servers to take the
place
of the truckload of impounded rogue servers that infected computers were using.
Federal
officials planned to keep their servers online until March, giving everyone
opportunity
to clean their computers. But it wasn't enough time. A federal judge in New York
extended the deadline until July.
Now, said Grasso, "the full court press is on to get people to address this
problem."
And it's up to computer users to check their PCs.
This is what happened:
Hackers infected a network of probably more than 570,000 computers worldwide.
They
took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system to
install
malicious software on the victim computers. This turned off antivirus updates
and
changed the way the computers reconcile website addresses behind the scenes on
the
Internet's domain name system.
The DNS system is a network of servers that translates a web address - such as
www.ap.org
- into the numerical addresses that computers use. Victim computers were
reprogrammed
to use rogue DNS servers owned by the attackers. This allowed the attackers to
redirect
computers to fraudulent versions of any website.
The hackers earned profits from advertisements that appeared on websites that
victims
were tricked into visiting. The scam netted the hackers at least $14 million,
according
to the FBI. It also made thousands of computers reliant on the rogue servers for
their Internet browsing.
When the FBI and others arrested six Estonians last November, the agency
replaced
the rogue servers with Vixie's clean ones. Installing and running the two
substitute
servers for eight months is costing the federal government about $87,000.
The number of victims is hard to pinpoint, but the FBI believes that on the day
of
the arrests, at least 568,000 unique Internet addresses were using the rogue
servers.
Five months later, FBI estimates that the number is down to at least 360,000.
The
U.S. has the most, about 85,000, federal authorities said. Other countries with
more
than 20,000 each include Italy, India, England and Germany. Smaller numbers are
online
in Spain, France, Canada, China and Mexico.
Vixie said most of the victims are probably individual home users, rather than
corporations
that have technology staffs who routinely check the computers.
FBI officials said they organized an unusual system to avoid any appearance of
government
intrusion into the Internet or private computers. And while this is the first
time
the FBI used it, it won't be the last.
"This is the future of what we will be doing," said Eric Strom, a unit chief in
the
FBI's Cyber Division. "Until there is a change in legal system, both inside and
outside
the United States, to get up to speed with the cyber problem, we will have to go
down these paths, trail-blazing if you will, on these types of investigations."
Now, he said, every time the agency gets near the end of a cyber case, "we get
to
the point where we say, how are we going to do this, how are we going to clean
the
system" without creating a bigger mess than before.
___
Online:
To check and clean computers: http://www.dcwg.org
Article URL:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/general/view.bg?articleid61125925
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