A Fuller Explanation;
For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing
Internet connections this July.
Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising
scam to take control of infected computers around the world.
In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago for US users, using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is now shut down.
After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.
Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software
probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines
more vulnerable to other problems.
There have already been some arrests and on the night of the arrests, agencies brought in Paul Vixie,
chairman and founder of Internet Systems Consortium, to install two Internet servers to take the place of the truckload of impounded rogue servers that infected computers were using.
Those authorities planned to keep their servers online until March, giving everyone opportunity to
clean their computers. But it wasn't enough time. A federal judge in New York extended the deadline
until July, and said, "the full court press is on to get people to address this problem." And it's up
to computer users to check their PCs.
This is what happened:
Hackers infected a network of probably more than 570,000 computers worldwide. They took advantage of
vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system to install malicious software on the victim
computers. This turned off antivirus updates and changed the way the computers reconcile website
addresses behind the scenes on the Internet's domain name system.
The DNS system is a network of servers that translates a web address — such as -
ap.org
— into the numerical addresses that computers use. Victim computers were reprogrammed to use rogue
DNS servers owned by the attackers. This allowed the attackers to redirect computers to fraudulent
versions of any website.
The hackers earned profits from advertisements that appeared on websites that victims were tricked
into visiting. The scam netted the hackers at least $14 million. It also made thousands of computers
reliant on the rogue servers for their Internet browsing.
The number of victims is hard to pinpoint, but at least 568,000 unique Internet addresses were using
the rogue servers. Five months later, FBI estimates that the number is down to at least 360,000.
The US has the most, about 85,000, federal authorities said.
Other countries with more than 20,000 each include Italy, India, England and Germany. Smaller numbers
are online in Spain, France, Canada, China and Mexico.
Vixie said most of the victims are probably individual home users, rather than corporations that have
technology staffs who routinely check the computers.
END
Hope this helps! 