FBI Might Cut Internet For Millions of People in March

[CoolBreeze]

Aint gonna happen but interesting none the less....


In an unprecedented move, the FBI may cut off Internet access to millions of people on March 8th to try to rid the country of a Trojan. Millions of computers are infected worldwide—maybe even yours.

The DNSChanger Trojan originated in Estonia and might be lurking undetected on as many as a half-million computers in the United States, according to Brian Krebs. It has been found on the computers at half of all Fortune 500 companies and at 27 government agencies. The Trojan changes an infected computer's DNS settings to send users to fraudulent websites. What's more, the worm is particularly malicious in that it also prevents you from visiting security websites that might diagnose or fix the problem. While the men authorities suspect are behind the Trojan have been arrested, the Feds, working in concert with the Estonian government, have yet to put the final kill on the worm's botnet.

That's where the Internet shutdown comes in. The FBI has a court order allowing it to set up temporary replacement DNS servers so that those with infected computers or networks can get the worm off of their systems. The court order, however, expires on March 8th. Unless that order gets extended, anybody who hasn't cleaned up their act before it expires, might get cut off from the Internet altogether.

Luckily, it turns out kicking DNSChanger is manageable—as long as you know you've got a problem. To learn more about checking your computer or network for the Trojan check out the DNS Changer Working Group and the FBI.

http://gizmodo.com/5885716/the-fbi-migh ... -march-8th


UPDATE:

Two months ago law enforcement in Estonia shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme that used the latest versions of DNSChanger Trojans to hijack search results while blocking victims from visiting security sites. According to security researcher Brian Krebs, DNS Changer remains on computers at 50% of Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50% of all federal government agencies.


The good news? Krebs notes that after the shutdown law enforcement was able to replace the scumware's DNS infrastructure with legitimate DNS servers. The bad news? Those DNS servers stop working on March 8:

Computers still infected with DNSChanger are up against a countdown clock. As part of the DNSChanger botnet takedown, the feds secured a court order to replace the Trojan’s DNS infrastructure with surrogate, legitimate DNS servers. But those servers are only allowed to operate until March 8, 2012. Unless the court extends that order, any computers still infected with DNSChanger may no longer be able to browse the Web.

The FBI's effort to put DNSChanger to bed has resulted in some fairly silly headlines, such as "FBI might shutdown the Internet on March 8." While the date might not be apocalyptic, it's certainly going to be a busy one for ISP support reps unless the DNSChanger Working Group can somehow get the deadline extended.