Infected PCs May Lose Internet in July

Story first appeared in USA Today.

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer.  For some corporations without security measures in place, this could also mean the loss of important business intellectual property, according to Sacramento IP Lawyers.

This image provided by The DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG) shows the checkup webpage. It will only take a few clicks of the mouse. But for hundreds of thousands of computer users, those clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing their 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 using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down.  Denver IP Lawyers caution users to investigate their security protocols to avoid loss of important trade secrets.

The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org, that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. 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.  Many corporations have found themselves in need of legal protection, in addition to IT security measures, stated Boston IP Lawyers.

Last November, the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers.

The FBI started to realize that there might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because if they just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet service. The average user would open up Internet Explorer and get 'page not found' and think the Internet is broken.

On the night of the arrests, the agency brought in the 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. Federal officials 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.

Now, the full court press is on to get people to address this problem. And it's up to computer users to check their PCs.

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 www.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, according to the FBI. It also made thousands of computers reliant on the rogue servers for their Internet browsing.

When the FBI and others arrested six Estonians last November, the agency replaced the rogue servers with clean ones. Installing and running the two substitute servers for eight months is costing the federal government about $87,000.

The number of victims is hard to pinpoint, but the FBI believes that on the day of the arrests, 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 U.S. 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.

Most of the victims are probably individual home users, rather than corporations that have technology staffs who routinely check the computers.  Many corporations utilize Managed IT Services that provide quality control and Security Solutions to avoid situations such as these.

FBI officials said they organized an unusual system to avoid any appearance of government intrusion into the Internet or private computers. And while this is the first time the FBI used it, it won't be the last.

Until there is a change in legal system, both inside and outside the United States, to get up to speed with the cyber problem, the FBI will have to go down these paths, trail-blazing if you will, on these types of investigations.

Now, every time the agency gets near the end of a cyber case, they get to the point where they say, how are we going to do this, how are we going to clean the system" without creating a bigger mess than before.

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Companies Doll Out Internet Access Where Needed Only

Story first appeared on USA Today.

Companies are stepping up their efforts to slice and dice their data network's bandwidth to ensure that critical work flow isn't hampered by employees' ceaseless demand for greater Internet access.

With heavier files jamming the network, some employees in need of critical business applications are given more capacity on the data network than those with less pressing business need. Organizations see it as a necessity in order to achieve the right type of experience.

The problem of clogged networks has been exacerbated by the widespread use of streaming sites, such as Netflix and Pandora, and by employees tapping into corporate Wi-Fi to listen to music, watch video and use social networking sites on their personal devices — even if it's during breaks.

The issue is particularly urgent for global or national companies with far-flung branches. Candy maker Cadbury, a Kraft subsidiary, chose to manage the network used by its global offices more extensively after an audit found that 55% of its traffic was recreational, says the chief marketing officer at Exinda, which was a consultant to Cadbury. Each office now gets prioritization based on size or contribution, says a local Houston IT Services company.

At Georgia Southern University, game videos used by the football team or video-based student learning applications get priority over videos shared by students. Almost every company has a heat map of what it considers is important.

XO worked with a movie studio that has marked special network priority for video files that are delivered from movie production sites to post-production digitization studios. Another XO client sends its buy and sell orders on an entirely dedicated network so that they are processed in a timely way.

While some companies even manage their bandwidth based on hours — more and faster Internet access for those who work at night — others lower the amount of bandwidth assigned for phone calls in the evening. That way, large data files can be transmitted quickly and seamlessly when fewer people are making calls on the corporate network. Companies want to ensure that data delivery takes preference over trivial internet processes, like buying shoes at Zappos.


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