You may lose your connection to the Internet on July 9, if your PC is infected by a malware called DNS Changer that is on the rampage worldwide.
The US’s Federal Bureau of Investigation will shut down on July 9 rogue servers that are getting traffic from infected personal computers. Thousands of computers across the globe are feared to be infected with this malware that makes your PC a slave of cyber criminals.
India, 3rd most infected
India emerged the third most infected country after the US and Italy. According to one estimate, the number could be 21,000 in India, while others say it could be far more.
If your PC is among this lot, your connection with the Internet will be snapped when the FBI sleuths begin a clean-up act on Monday morning. Your PC might pop a message: “Failed to resolve your request’.
Internet security firms have come out with free tools that help you check whether your computer is infected or not. They can even resolve the issue. You can also get in touch with your Internet Service Provider to resolve the issue.
If people fail to resolve the issue, they will not be able to access the Web even after July 9. A good number of these PCs (or unique IP addresses) are estimated to be in small and medium businesses which lack enough anti-virus protection.
What is DNS Changer?
Domain Name System (DNS) is like a translator. It translates whatever typed in the address bar (gmail, Yahoo! and other names of sites) into an IP (Internet Protocol) number that computers use to talk to one another. The Internet then will look for the numbers that suits your query and establish a connection so that you will be able to visit the requested site.
DNS Changer is a Trojan created by cybercriminals to redirect the Internet traffic of lakhs of unsuspecting consumers to Web sites. This malware stealthily changes the DNS settings in a PC, making it a slave.
“Identifying and changing these settings manually can be difficult. We have provided a free tool that walks them through the process,” Mr Vinoo Thomas, Product manager of McAfree Labs, said.
help
The Indian Computer Emergency Response (www.certi-in.org.in) and FBI (www.fbi.gov) offer advice on how to tackle this issue.