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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