The FBI is to shut down a DNS server for thousands of trojan infected computers by July the 9th. The DNS Changer Trojan infected 6 million computers worldwide at its peak. The trojan, which has been online for five years, infects DNS servers and lets Estonian cybercriminals redirect internet traffic to websites with adverts, scams and fraudulent schemes, from which they gained millions of dollars of profit.
The FBI had managed to shut down the hacker DNS network and replace it with a legitimate FBI run DNS server for the afflicted computers. This takeover by the FBI occured in March, however, months later still 350,000 computers remain infected with the DNS trojan. Any computers that are infected will lose internet access when the FBI pulls the plug on the temporary DNS replacement for infected machines.
There is a simple fix for the DNS Changer Trojan and you can check if your computer is one of the 350,000 still infected by visiting this McAfee DNS checker. However, the number of systems still infected is falling so slowly so by the time July the 9th comes hundreds of thousands of consumers will be without internet due to DNS issues.
We strongly advise every reader of this article to make certain you are not one of the affected computers, the DNS checking tool above requires no software installation, downloads or personal details.
