Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (Full Version)

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VanessaChaland -> Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 3:57:34 AM)

In case anyone missed this:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/04/20/national/w110653D95.DTL



littlewonder -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 10:14:05 AM)

kewl. Another Y2K bug mass hysteria.



MissImmortalPain -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 10:41:17 AM)

Why is the FBI telling people to do things by way of the SanFrancisco Chronnicle? At best this is a very badly written piece. At worst they are giving out a link that is just as bad as what they are trying to scare people about.



Kirata -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 11:04:08 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: MissImmortalPain

Why is the FBI telling people to do things by way of the SanFrancisco Chronnicle? At best this is a very badly written piece. At worst they are giving out a link that is just as bad as what they are trying to scare people about.

In order to assist victims affected by the DNSChanger malicious software the FBI obtained a court order authorizing Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) to deploy and maintain temporary Clean DNS servers. The solution is temporary and intended to buy time so that victims can clean affected computers and restore their normal DNS settings. ~DCWG

The Chronicle is only one of many news outlets reporting on this. For example, here it is on Forbes.

For tools to detect the malware and if necessary remove it, go here: http://www.dcwg.org/

The FBI's page on this is here: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911

K.



angelikaJ -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 11:11:44 AM)

The link in the article is okay.

Here is more info:

http://stupidevilbastard.com/2012/04/isps-and-fbi-warning-about-a-nasty-rootkit-called-alureon/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alureon




shallowdeep -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 11:43:28 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: MissImmortalPain
Why is the FBI telling people to do things by way of the SanFrancisco Chronicle?

Other than issuing press releases and posting information on their website, which is what they have done, what should the FBI do to notify people? They don't have readily available personal contact information for the infected users and it's not really their job anyway. As pointed out, the Chronicle is just one of many sources disseminating the press release information.

In a previous article I saw on the issue, there was some consideration of redirecting users of the replacement DNS servers to a page informing them of the infection, but there appear to have been philosophical objections, and perhaps legal ones as well, to doing that.



thishereboi -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 12:50:04 PM)

Thanks for the heads up

I'm green [:)]



MissImmortalPain -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 12:55:25 PM)

It not really being their job was sort of the root of my question. I guess maybe I'm a little confused by people not knowing what a highjacker is and why the feds would feel they need to now tell people. I did not mean to imply the link is bad....if I thought it was I wouldn't have clicked it. I just didn't know people were already aware that this can happen and how to fix it. I guess I need to keep reminding myself that computers are like cars and just because someone knows how to drive one it doesn't mean they actually know how it works.



Karmastic -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 1:00:53 PM)

wow, ditto, thanks for the heads up, i'm also green

the different ways they think up to hack is fascinating



PeonForHer -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 2:01:59 PM)

Likewise, I'm green. But they talk of a small cleaner utility that you can download to fix the problem should your test result be 'red'. If there is such a cleaner, though, then surely it'd be included in a PC's standard antivirus updates?



Karmastic -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 2:14:34 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

Likewise, I'm green. But they talk of a small cleaner utility that you can download to fix the problem should your test result be 'red'. If there is such a cleaner, though, then surely it'd be included in a PC's standard antivirus updates?

"it depends"



shallowdeep -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 3:31:54 PM)

Ah, I see where you are coming from. This isn't some general informational warning about the risk of malware the FBI suddenly decided to issue out of the blue, however. It's a specific case where the FBI's action in taking down a collection of rogue DNS servers will have the direct consequence of preventing infected users from resolving domain names, effectively abruptly cutting off most of their Internet access. Especially if all of a person's machines are infected, this could be a significant pain to fix after the replacement servers go dark on July 9th, but it's relatively easy while they still have fully functional Internet access. Given the disruption that abruptly losing DNS access would cause and the relatively large number of users affected, making some attempt to notify people who are still infected before permanently shutting off the servers seems prudent – and press releases are a good way of doing that without an unreasonable amount of effort.



shallowdeep -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 3:33:51 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
If there is such a cleaner, though, then surely it'd be included in a PC's standard antivirus updates?

Yes, such capability is likely to be included with updated antivirus software. The utilities suggested by the DCWG site to fix the infection are not provided or supported by the working group; they're simply links to free tools from the likes of Microsoft, Kaspersky, McAfee, Symantec, and Avira. The online test could still be useful for detecting variants that may not have a known malware signature, or if a router was compromised – something that has been seen with this.



NuevaVida -> RE: Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July. (4/30/2012 5:58:09 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


For tools to detect the malware and if necessary remove it, go here: http://www.dcwg.org/



Thank you!



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