Surojit Chatterjee
Will you be one of the several thousands who'll lose Internet access on Monday, July 9? Is the very thought that the DNSChanger malware (aka. Doomsday virus) could have infected your computer, making you creep out? Well, don't freak out, because help is at hand.
A simple test will determine whether your computer's clean and you won't be affected by the bug unleashed almost five years ago by the cybercriminals. Just click on www.dns-ok.us (the site's FBI approved) and you'll get to know instantly whether your computer's clean (green screen) or dirty (red screen). Other ways of finding out is by heading over to FBI - Check to See if Your Computer is Using Rogue DNS page, www.dcwg.org or getting a quick virus scan done by MacAfee or Norton anti-virus.
However, combating DNAChanger virus wasn't initially as simple as it looked. In fact, getting the message out about the virus was very difficult for the FBI in the beginning and hence the federal agency had to recourse to setting up special Internet servers ('safety net's), which would facilitate affected Internet users to bypass spammy, illegit Web sites. The DNSChanger virus prevents a computer to properly access the Internet's DNS system (the Internet's phone book) and redirects users' queries and searches to phony DNS servers, sending them to fraudulent, spammy sites.
FBI said there were over 4 million computers infected initially worldwide and estimates that there are still over 277,000 computers held to hostage now, of which about 64,000 could be in the U.S. alone.
So, if you're one of those who's scared and wondering whether your computer is infected or not (symptoms of infection are slowed down Web browsing, anti virus disabled, etc), we would recommend that you quickly head over to www.dns-ok.us and check it out for yourself.
Remember, FBI is going to pull the plug on their Internet servers at 12.01am EDT Monday and after that, you're on your on. Time's running out. Good luck.
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