PSA : DNS Malware infections

Just a quick PSA post from Marcos Velez. 

As you may have heard by now, a fairly serious DNS-related malware infection took place last year and has been on the news recently.  While the malware was stopped on November 8 2011, and a temporary solution put in place to help infected users, it is estimated that a sizable amount of the more than 4 million infected PCs is still affected and will lose Internet connectivity on July 9 2012, when the temporary fix will be taken offline.  The malware was part of an elaborate advertising scam that would change user’s DNS settings to point to a set of rogue servers that would direct users to websites that in turn resulted in "clicks" for advertisements. The rogue DNS servers were taken over by the FBI in November but, given the widespread reach of the malware, it was decided to keep them online to prevent a large amount of users from losing Internet functionality.  The problem is that the servers are being taken offline in ten weeks and many people could lose the ability to resolve internet addresses when that happens.

To make sure you are not "infected", you can use the following link to check that your DNS settings are OK and not compromised: https://www.dns-ok.us/

Alternatively, if you want to read more about the malware, and the situation that has ensued,  you can read about it here: https://www.dcwg.org/

Have

a great day, and don’t let your computer lose its Internet functionality!

Thanks Marcos!