Internet Doomsday" Virus Could Black Out Nearly 250,000 Pcs On 9 July

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[center][size=5][b]"Internet Doomsday" virus could black out nearly 250,000 PCs on 9 July '12[/b][/size][/center]
[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]06 Jul, 2012, 9:20 am IST [/font][/color][/size][/left]



[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]About a quarter-million computer users around the world are at risk of losing Internet access on Monday[/font][/color][/size][/left]
[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]because of malicious software at the heart of a hacking scam that U.S. authorities shut down last November. [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]Some blogs and news reports hyped the risk of an outage, warning of a potential "blackout" [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]and describing the [/font][/color][/size][/left]
[size=5][b]Alureon malware as the "Internet Doomsday" virus.[/b][/size]




[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]Yet experts said only a tiny fraction of computer users were at risk, [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]and Internet providers would be on call to quickly restore service. They said they considered [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]the threat to be small compared with more-prevalent viruses such as Zeus and SpyEye, [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]which infect millions of PCs and are used to commit financial fraud.[/font][/color][/size][/left]


[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]As of this week, about 245,000 computers worldwide were still infected by Alureon and its brethren, [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]according to security firm Deteque. That included 45,355 computers in the United States.[/font][/color][/size][/left]


[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]The viruses were designed to redirect Internet traffic through rogue DNS servers controlled by criminals, [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]according to the FBI. DNS servers are computer switchboards that direct Web traffic.[/font][/color][/size][/left]



[size=5][b]The coming of Internet Doomsday?[/b][/size]



[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]When authorities took down the rogue servers, a federal judge in New York ordered that temporary servers [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]be kept in place while the victims' machines were repaired. The temporary servers will shut down at 12:01 a.m. [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]EDT on Monday, which means the infected PCs that have not been fixed will no longer be able to connect to the Internet.[/font][/color][/size][/left]


[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]Some U.S. Internet providers, including AT&T Inc and Time Warner Cable, [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]have made temporary arrangements so that their customers will be able to [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]access the Internet using the address of the rogue DNS servers.[/font][/color][/size][/left]


[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]Information on how to identify and clean up infections can be found on a website [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]that a group of security firms and other experts set up: [/font][/color][/size][/left]
[size=5][url="http://www.dcwg.org/"]www.dcwg.org[/url][/size]
[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif].[/font][/color][/size][/left]


[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]"It's a very easy one to fix," said Gunter Ollmann, vice president of research for security company Damballa. [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]"There are plenty of tools available."[/font][/color][/size][/left]


[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]Many of the machines that remain infected are probably not in active use since most victims were notified of the problem, [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]said security expert Johannes Ullrich, who runs the Internet Storm Center, which monitors Web threats.[/font][/color][/size][/left]


[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]The United States has charged seven people for orchestrating the worldwide Internet fraud. [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]Six were arrested in Estonia, while the seventh, who was living in Russia, is still at large. [/font][/color][/size][/left]

[left][size=5][color=#000000][font=verdana, sans-serif]Tallinn has so far extradited two of the men to New York where they appeared in Manhattan federal court.[/font][/color][/size][/left]

[HAPPYLESS]

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