Know a friend who can’t get online today? help them out

If you can read this today then you are likely to be safe from the DNS Changer malware which has reportedly infected thousands of computers. We reported last week that week that 277,000 people may be struggling to get online today.

This malware has been active since 2007, and it changes the domain name system (DNS) settings so they redirect the user to a series of fake DNS servers. This then redirects web site requests to malicious locations to grab personal information.

This malware was identified and dealt with by the FBI, there are however infected computers still hijacked by the rogue servers. The US government did create a temporary fix to help infected machines to stay online, by redirecting them to proper servers.

Today however the temporary fixes get shut down, which could leave many people hanging in the wind without a working DNS server. If your machine is infected then you are unlikely to be able to read this today, or access the internet at all.

Internet service providers did their best to contact their user base to inform them of the potential issue. Many people were redirected to the DNSChanger Working Group web site. There is a list of free tools available which can be downloaded. These remove the malware from the machine, restoring the default, and legitimate DNS server list.

Kitguru says: Hopefully the infections are kept to a minimum today. If you know a friend who can't get online today, help them out.

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