Servers will be shut down on July 9!
By Spicy, 27th Apr 2012 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutNewsBusiness
If you visited sites like Amazon.com, or the Wall Street Journal’s website and saw or clicked ads on them last year, be warned-- your internet connection might go out of existence in July this year.
Malware and FBI
The FBI is warning hundreds of thousands of people about a malware released late last year to DNS servers that redirected users to advertising websites and required users to pay for the ads they saw and clicked. The ring of cyber-criminals behind the malware earned about $14 million in illegitimate income, according to the FBI’s report.
The FBI report said that few of the examples of ‘Click hijacking’ and ‘Advertisement Replacement Fraud’ that the malware perpetrated affected visitors to a number of leading websites such as Apple, The Wall Street Journal, the ESPN website, Netflix, Amazon.com etc. Victims who went to the Apple website, for example, were taken to an unaffiliated website that posed to sell Apple software when they clicked on the domain name link for the official Apple i-Tunes software. DNS Servers help you to go to particular addresses but the malware DNSChanger took victims to a cybercrime ring’s servers instead of websites they wanted to visit.
The malware affected about 4 million computers in about 100 countries worldwide. Last year, the FBI caught six of the seven cyber-criminals involved in the malware attack that was first discovered in 2007, and re-routed the infected computers to temporary, properly functioning servers in March this year, but these servers will be shut down on July 9, 2012.
Although the victims of this attack were expected to clean their systems of the infection by July, the malware affected the installation of anti-virus software and prevented the systems from receiving operating system updates, which makes the task even harder than expected.
But the DNS Changing Group which was set up to oversee the servers has set up a website to help you diagnose your computer and disinfect it, if necessary.
Comments
27th Apr 2012 (#)
thanks for this warning Spicy...
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank you Delicia.
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
Helpful tips, Spicy. Good information. Please take care.
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank you Buzz for your comment
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
I had read about this a while ago and while it is important to point out the risk to people it is my understanding that the technical people for both the companies involved and the FBI have been working to minimise the impact on those affected.
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank for moderating this page and commenting on this. Thank you very much sir.
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6th May 2012 (#)
My pleasure, always happy to assist.
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
Great information. Thank you.
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank you Pradeep for your nice comment.
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
Interesting information. Thanks.
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank you Denise
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
Thank you for the information honey... shallimarRose
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5th May 2012 (#)
Very cheerful comment. Thank you Shalimar
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
This is very helpful, Spicy. Thanks for sharing.
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5th May 2012 (#)
Hi Tess, happy for seeing you on this page.
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
Thanks for the valuable information, Spicy. Have a great day!
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank you Noreen, wish you the same
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27th Apr 2012 (#)
Mmm...very interesting. Loved this page. Thanks.
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank you very much Sheila
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29th Apr 2012 (#)
Thank you for sharing this useful information.
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5th May 2012 (#)
Thank you Tranquilpen, for your stopping on this page.
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