This comes from a story from the Associated Press. It ran on Yahoo. This is not a fake story.
After you take steps to protect yourself, please forward this article to associates.
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.
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 people have not heard about this. Their antivirus software has been disabled.
“We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because … if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet service,” said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. “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 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. 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, said Grasso, “the full court press is on to get people to address this problem.” And it’s up to computer users to check their PCs.
The perpetrators were Estonians.
I checked my computer. It’s OK. This took less than one minute. I used the highlighted link above. Here it is again: http://www.dcwg.org .
This is the FBI’s warning: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911
For details on the story, click the link
Has anyone checked the http://www.dcwg.org to see if it implants any spyware, or cookies, etc.? I am very wary of all of this sort of thing. If the FBI has a hand in it, or any government agency, or any front organization for an agency, I'm concerned.
I don't know if confidence in our government can ever be restored. It's all a criminal organization now.
VERY good points!!
That's an interesting tactic the hackers took to try to protect their infrastructure. But I don't see much cause for concern, just an interesting story. Here's why:
8 Million people had a serious virus infection in the last year, and 16 million had a spyware problem, in the US alone. A good virus routinely infects 500,000 computers worldwide–and most infections contain multiple viruses. Conficker (the most widespread virus of all time) knocked out nearly 9 million computers. And this 500,000 infections number is spread worldwide, which means maybe 10% are US based. So, out of 240 Million internet users in the US, .0002% of internet users might notice a problem. References: http://www.statisticbrain.com/computer-virus-stat… http://goo.gl/tVuDO
But something does concern me. If the government is controlling these people's DNS, they could easily redirect all infected users to this dcwg.org page. The article itself said that the hackers were directing people to a fake iTunes page. I'm a part-time webmaster, and this is so easy I could do it in my sleep. So why this media campaign in the first place? We know from prior experience that the Government would love to track every internet user's activity. That's exactly the technology these hackers have developed. They had the same all-encompassing information access that the government gets from wiretaps, without the wiretap or secret room at the ISP.
Well, I clicked on your link and it says server unavailable, try later. So what does that mean?
This is the perfect way for the FBI to install spyware in everybody’s computer without any legal hassles, courts, or any other law they might encounter(although they ignore them anyway). The next rattlesnake I come across is going straight into my pocket or inside my shirt so I’ll know where it is and won’t have any surprises.
I had the same experience. Also went to the FBI website and didn't find the link there.
Hit the nail on the head. That's what it's all about for sure.
Ditto
That link does not work.
Oh, what a joke!! I clicked on the icon to find out if my computer is infected, and guess what I saw.. "Service unavailable, try again later"!!!!! Aren't you funny!
http://www.trunews.com with Rick Wiles.
^^^LISTEN^^^
I too, think this is a ruse to implant spyware onto your computer. I'm not even going to try clicking on the link…just in case!
You people need to tighten your tin foil hats. This is a real virus…I work in tech support and we have had training on it so when our customers experience any issues with not being able to get online we can help them.
But I am sure all of you conspiracy loons will think I really work for the FBI and am trying to infiltrate your brain by you reading my post. Crackpots…
Yeah right, I'll take my changes with the virus before I visit a government site.