Thousands of users may lose net connectivity on Monday 9-7-2012

Thousands of users may lose net connectivity on Monday 9-7-2012

As the cyber world awaits Monday, when the FBI will shut down servers affected by the DNS Changer malware, a list of affected countries shows India in the third spot.

Domain Name System (DNS) is part of the internet that links up a website name (like example.com) to its numerical Internet Protocol equivalent (like 123.456.789.098).

According to the DNS Changer Working Group, as of July 4, there are 19,642 IP addresses infected in India. At the top of the table is the US with 45,619, and next is Italy with 21,831. The DNS Changer Working Group monitors DNS servers as part of efforts to undo the worldwide damage done by the malware.

The DNS Changer malware hit the headlines last year, after the FBI and Estonian police arrested many criminals who had floated a company called Rove Digital and spread viruses under various names. These viruses altered the DNS settings of computers, leading users to fraudulent websites rather than the real ones.

Under a US court order that expires on Monday, the Internet Systems Consortium had mounted an operation to clean up the servers. When the FBI shuts down the rogue servers on Monday, users whose network has been infected will not be able to log on to the internet.

Vinoo Thomas, product manager, McAfee Labs, says it is difficult to determine the exact number of infected computers in India which might go down on Monday. "If your system has been hit, then it means your IP address points to the infected server. Since these servers will be shut down on Monday, you will not be able to access internet. To set it right, you will have to contact your internet service provider, like BSNL and Airtel, to reset the IP addresses."

Is your system infected?

There is still a day to check if the system has been affected. Various cyber security firms have offered free solutions. For example, users can go to www.mcafee.com/dnscheck to check if their computer is infected. Symantec customers whose computer has been hit are being notified through their product. Users can also go to the DNS Changer Check-Up page http://www.dcwg.org/detect, maintained by the DNS Changer Working Group, to determine whether their computer has been compromised or not.