Hundreds of thousands of computers will simultaneously lose access to the web on July 9, unless their owners check for an epidemic which could have remained hidden for several years, the FBI has warned.
The so-called "internet doomsday" will come because the bureau turns off a server system its investigators installed in November, once they broke up an Estonian crime ring that was running a world web advertising scam.
Since 2007, the six men were using a "Trojan" virus - named after the mythical horse - to grab control of computers around the globe.
The virus, called "DNS Changer", would redirect the net browsers of victims from sites they desired to visit to ones controlled by the crowd.
Revenue from adverts tied to these sites is estimated to have earned the criminals US$14 million ($17.2 million) in commission.
By late last year, when the FBI and Estonian authorities shut down the racket, the virus had seized control of about half 1,000,000 computers.
However, had the investigators simply closed down the gang's servers, every computer infected would was unable to access the web.
The FBI replaced the gang's servers with a surrogate server system, and install a free website which permits people to envision in the event that they are victims of the virus, after which remove it from their machine.
- Independent
CHECK YOUR COMPUTER
http://goo.gl/fl6Mw
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento
Comments links could be nofollow free