[real-eyes] Re: hundreds of thousands could loose internet access in July
- From: Glenn <glennervin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:34:06 -0500
Yeh, the screen is supposed to turn red if we are infected.
A lot of good that does us.
Glenn
----- Original Message -----
From: "blindbites" <blindbites@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 10:02 PM
Subject: [real-eyes] Re: hundreds of thousands could loose internet access
in July
Yeah, google's are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
Steve
On 4/20/2012 9:57 PM, &&& (Ruthie) wrote:
> Whether or not this website thats going to check to see if your computer
> has been compromised by having the DNS servers changed, an ready way is to
> change them manually to something like Google's servers.
> &&& (Ruthie)
> We are more than the sum of our parts
> Quit looking for the tagline. It saw you coming and ran away.
> On Apr 20, 2012 9:40 PM, "Duyahn Walker"<themusicman1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> 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
>> i_top
>> \
>> 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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>> i_bottom
>> this.OBACanObjects[1].ShowCANData('AdInfo_1',1,1,0);
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>> nat1061125925_2012-04-20 18:33:16_text_1_0_0
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