FBI temporary servers were shut down at 12:01 a.m. ET, bringing “Internet Doomsday” for those who did not remove the DNS Changer malware. Although some may be reading this article from a smartphone instead of a computer, msnbc reported that many survived the cut, thanks to www.dns-ok.us from DCWG.
"Less than one percent of Cox customers are infected with the virus," said Cox Communications director of media relations, Todd C. Smith, to msnbc.com.
Comcast senior director Charles Douglas also said they only received “miniscule” number of calls.
"Going into this, we had estimated that far less than even 1/10th of 1 percent of our customers would be affected,” said Douglas to msnbc.com.
The DNS Changer Malware was created in 2007 by a group of hackers, who tried to redirect people’s traffic to rogue servers so that they could make revenue from advertising companies. According to reports, they generated about $14 million through this illegitimate method.
FBI arrested six of the Estonian hackers in 2011, but they did not shut down the servers immediately, which will blackout the Internet for infected computers. FBI requested the court to set up clean DNS servers for people who are infected while fixing the system. They originally planned to shut the temporary servers down in March, but extended to July 9.
In the mean time, FBI advised people to check with DNC Changer Working Group (DCWG) to check their system and fix, if infected. Millions have reported to visit www.dns-ok.us to check their system.
If your Internet stopped working today (and reading this from a smartphone or tablet), then check with your Internet provider to solve the problem. According to security company, F-Secure, many major Internet Service Providers have “configured their own substitute DNS servers and are continuing to work the problem.”
“But don't panic. According to reports, many major Internet Service Providers have configured their own substitute DNS servers and are continuing to work the problem,” wrote F-secure.
“The FBI is out — and ISPs are in. All in all, things are working out as they probably should in a case such as this. The infection count continues to decrease without a major crisis in support calls. (We've only received a couple from our own customers.)”
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