Topic: Malware May Kill Your PC July 9

[Highwind Dragoon]

http://news.discovery.com/tech/dns-changer-fbi-warning-july-9-doomsday-120426.html

ON JULY 9TH, THE INTERNET SCREECHS TO A HALT. 

I checked my PC, it got a green. 

[Abnormal Freak]

lol wut. Something tells me clicking that DNS link is what will infect a computer.

[Highwind Dragoon]

Dude, that would require that news site and the FBI to lie to you.

And if they did, it would be fraud.

[Kale]

I clicked on it...


I thought it might be a site that'll infect you. But it's a .us site. And while I'm sure the FBI would love to infect you and spy on you, I didn't get any type reaction from my virus detection progs.

[X]

I'm green, good to go!

[TheouAegis]

But why July 9th? Wouldn't you already be getting rerouted if you had the virus on your computer? How would anyone even know the virus existed if it wasn't doing anything until July 9th?

I don't trust Discovery. News groups mess up all the time. And federal agencies joke around a lot. There have been official posts about zombie invasions, zombie infections, and even mermaids.

And did you guys already forget about Balloon Boy, the kid that supposedly was trapped inside a homemade hot air balloon but was really safe at home?

Then there was Maurice Jarre, a musician who died. Newspapers published a quote of his that was later proven to be a hoax published on Wikipedia, thus exposing the laziness in many reporters who use Wikipedia instead of doing actual research.

There was the Flemish Secession hoax of the Radio Television Belge Francophone News that deliberately reported the false story that the Flemish seceded from Belgium.

And of course there were the joke sites like IBuyStrays.com and BonsaiKitten.com that were reported on by newspapers and news sites that sometimes treated the sites as legit, sick businesses. Goes to show newspapers are run by fools too.

The BBC once messed up big-time when they interviewed what they thought was a representative of Dow Chemical after a big chemical leak. The interviewee said Dow was apologetic and was going to pay a $12bil compensation package. This news lead to a hasty drop in Dow Chem's stock values. Turned out the interviewee was a member of The Yes Men, a group of imposters.

A chart showing that people who voted for George W. Bush were dumber than people that voted for Gore was widely published before it was revealed to be a hoax.

And of course there was the infamous Jack Kelley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist of USA Today. It turned out many of his stories were elaborate cases of yellow journalism. How elaborate? When he realized he was being investigated, he hired fake witnesses to try to throw the investigators off. Over 150 news stories, many of them front-page selections, were revealed to be nothing more than yellow journalism.


Still think Discovery and the FBI can be trusted?


Anyway, back on topic. Here is the official PDF file from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911/DNS-changer-malware.pdf

By the way, municipal, state and federal sites do not use the .us domain name, they use the .gov domain. Likewise, public schools use the .edu domain. So anything that has a .us domain is not a federal site. Period. You can purchase a .us domain name.

DNSChanger is just a generic name for any malware that alters the DNS entries. If you've ever been rerouted to another site than the one you typed, you have a DNSChanger malware.

As the PDF explains, you do not need to visit any sites to clean a DNSChanger off your computer, you can easily do it yourself or hire a professional. I

Here is the official statement/report about the authorization:

Update on March 12, 2012: To assist victims affected by the DNSChanger malicious software, the FBI obtained a court order authorizing the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) to deploy and maintain temporary clean DNS servers. This solution is temporary, providing additional time for victims to clean affected computers and restore their normal DNS settings. The clean DNS servers will be turned off on July 9, 2012, and computers still impacted by DNSChanger may lose Internet connectivity at that time.

The ISC simply does the same thing the malware does and reroutes the DNS entries so computers already infected with the malware will be able to get them cleaned online.

As for that link, it seems to be legit. Here is the official FBI form that posts it: https://forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS

If you don't think you have a DNSChanger malware, then don't bother going to the links. But if you want to be safe, you can check. Note for people in other countries, there are international DNSChanger verifier sites on that link as well.


Update: I clicked on the link. I got GREEN status. But if you read the print at the bottom of the screen, it says you'll get GREEN if your ISP reroutes your DNS for you also.

[Highwind Dragoon]

http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/07/09/internet-dnschanger-fbi/

Nothing happened, only .02% of PCs worldwide got infected by it.