250000 computers may lose internet
Information
,
News
,
Tech
1 comment
 |
| About a quarter-million computers around the world risk losing internet access on Monday due to a malicious software that is part of a hacking scam shut down by US authorities. |
BOSTON: About a quarter-million
computer users around the world are at risk of losing internet access on Monday
because of malicious software at the heart of a hacking scam that US
authorities shut down last November.
Some blogs and news reports hyped the
risk of an outage, warning of a potential 'blackout' and describing the
Alureon malware as the
'Internet Doomsday' virus.
Yet experts said only a tiny fraction
of computer users were at risk, and internet providers would be on call to
quickly restore service. They said they considered the threat to be small
compared with more-prevalent viruses such as Zeus and SpyEye, which infect
millions of PCs and are used to commit financial fraud.
As of this week, about 245,000
computers worldwide were still infected by Alureon and its brethren, according
to security firm Deteque. That included 45,355 computers in the United States.
The viruses were designed to redirect
internet traffic through rogue DNS servers controlled by criminals, according
to the FBI. DNS servers are
computer switchboards that direct web traffic.
When authorities took down the rogue
servers, a federal judge in New York ordered
that temporary servers be kept in place while the victims' machines were
repaired. The temporary servers will shut down at 12:01 am EDT (0401 GMT) on
Monday, which means the infected PCs that have not been fixed will no longer be
able to connect to the internet.
Some US internet providers, including
AT&T and Time Warner Cable, have made temporary arrangements so that their customers
will be able to access the internet using the address of the rogue DNS servers.
"It's a very easy one to
fix," said Gunter Ollmann, vice president of research for security company
Damballa. "There are plenty of tools available."
Many of the machines that remain
infected are probably not in active use since most victims were notified of the
problem, said security expert Johannes Ullrich, who runs the Internet Storm
Center, which monitors web threats.
The United States has charged seven people for orchestrating
the worldwide internet fraud. Six were arrested in Estonia, while the seventh, who was living in Russia, is still at large. Tallinn has so far extradited
two of the men to New York where they appeared in Manhattan federal court.
The case is USA v. Tsastsin et al, US
District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 11-cr-878.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
Having read thiis I thought it was extremely enlightening.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you spending some time and effor to put this short
article together. I once again find myself splending a signifficant amount of time
both readxing and commenting. But so what, it wwas stilpl worthwhile!
Here is my web site - buy youtube views for cheap