Hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July

[TripleDigitRide]

Kind of fitting with the recent DNS issues we had here on TGO.

http://www.wsmv.com/story/17613582/hundreds-of-thousands-may-lose-internet-in-july

Here's the direct link to see if your computer is infected. All you have to do is click on the following link. It will tell you if your computer has been infected. http://www.dns-ok.us/

If your computer has NOT been infected, you do NOT have to do anything. If your computer has been infected, click on the following link for directions on how to solve the issue. http://www.dcwg.org/

My computer was fine, so I have no idea how easy or difficult it is to resolve any issue if you've been infected.

[Volzfan]

Thanks TDR! Mine is OK.

[f3joel]

Just another reason to switch to linux

[Guest Lester Weevils]

FBI claims to have publicised this since last year but today is first time I recall hearing about it. Maybe everybody else knew but me.

The problem with such stories-- I have no problem believing that there are massive and numerous security hazards on the internet. In fact, am paranoid enough that it took me at least 30 minutes reading references ABOUT the issue before getting up nerve to click the repair site. If it had been a bogus story then there would be no better way to mass-infect millions of computers than run a bad news article shooing the masses to a bogus "repair" site which actually injects a virus, worm or trojan.

Maybe I'm unusually cautious (or paranoid if you will) but if everybody who reads that story and decides to visit the repair site, spends up to 30 minutes "checking up" on the validity of the repair site before visiting it-- That is a bunch of man-hours down the drain for no good purpose. I don't offer solution. Just a serious waste of man-hours.

[enfield]

If hundreds of thousands MAY lose internet, then hundreds of thousands MAY NOT. Pitiful what passes for journalism these days. Just make up rumors and pass them around.

[bubbiesdad]

Big green box for me. Thanks.

[Oh Shoot]

Doh, NM

Edited April 22, 2012 by OhShoot

[Guest Broomhead]

The hell that mean?

Click the second link in the OP and find out.

I've seen enough reports from several different sites, both news and others, that I figured it was legit. So, I clicked it and got a green box too.

[Oh Shoot]

Click the second link in the OP and find out...

Doh, had already done check, but it didn't register, was thinking slang for some operating system or something, thnx.

- OS

[Oh Shoot]

Doh, NM.

[Caster]

No internet??? and all the world goes...

:panic: :panic:

[nightrunner]

No internet??? and all the world goes...

:panic: :panic:

Yup but it honestly would hurt my feelings a bit if it suddenly vaporized

[analog_kidd]

It looks like they just change the DNS setting on your computer. If that's the case, all you have to do to fix it is to check the box in the network setup that says " Obtain DNS Settings automatically". This will set your DNS to whatever is being advertised from your router, which is probably picked up by the router from your Internet Provider.

One thing I always do is to modify my hosts file. When looking up an internet address, your computer always checks the hosts file first, then if it can't find the address there it checks with the DNS Server. I look for pre-configured hosts file on the Internet, Google HPHosts for example. The files will contain a list of site names, like www.acme.com and then the IP address of that site. Typically your hosts file will have one or two lines in it. These pre-configured files will be full of addresses that are either malicious, or annoying, like ads. What these hosts files do is point the address to nothing, so when a bad web page that is in the hosts file is attempted to be opened, instead of going to the page, you simply get a page not found error. For ads, you'll just see an empty box where the ad would have been.

The ad blocking benefit is great. It will speed up your web browsing, and makes the pages less annoying. I always am startled when I go to someones else's PC and browse a site that I am familiar with. The page looks completely different on their PC. Mine is less cluttered, and loads quick.

By the way, modifying the hosts file is a common technique used by malware. They will moidify it so that your antivirus updates page goes to nowhere, so you can never get updates. Or they will redirect you to another site. One way to combat this is to set the file to read-only, or set restrictive permissions on the file.

If you find out the IP address of one site, you can fake out your computer to think the friendly name of one site goes to the IP of the different site. I do this for friends that don't want their kid on facebook any more. I edit the hosts file and point the facebook page to the IP address of some other page, like news, or Sessame street, or just blank so they get a page not found error. When fixing someones computer, the hosts file is one of the first things I look at to see if it has been modified.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

One of those FBI pdf's said this scam, if it got control of a computer, would also attempt to patch the router or the router inside an ISP modem box so every computer on that router goes thru the hijack servers. Recommended that people change the default password on their routers. I'm gonna guess maybe 99 percent of people have default passwords on the router, but maybe not. I usually don't run installation software every 4 or 5 years swapping out a router, just go in and set it up manually. But installed a new linksys router for dad last year and the installation software basically wouldn't work (as far as I could see) until you tell it a password to use. So maybe people installing routers with manufacturer installers nowadays get non-default passwords "by default".

Edited April 23, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[vontar]

One of those FBI pdf's said this scam, if it got control of a computer, would also attempt to patch the router or the router inside an ISP modem box so every computer on that router goes thru the hijack servers. Recommended that people change the default password on their routers. I'm gonna guess maybe 99 percent of people have default passwords on the router, but maybe not. I usually don't run installation software every 4 or 5 years swapping out a router, just go in and set it up manually. But installed a new linksys router for dad last year and the installation software basically wouldn't work (as far as I could see) until you tell it a password to use. So maybe people installing routers with manufacturer installers nowadays get non-default passwords "by default".

I will check in to this later as I don't have time. However I regularly format reinstall my OS on all my computers.

My routers do not have default passwords. (routers is correct as I have more then one, non standard router).

However I know allot of people do have default passwords on their routers as I have accidentaly got into other people's routers while working on computers.

The last time I was working on my in laws computers. I was surfed into the router making changes and it was not fixing the problem I was trying to solve. I finally turned off their router and was surprised I was still connected. A neighbor had another router running all default. You may ask why I used a default password, It was because during trouble shooting I had factory reset their(in laws) router.

After I figured out what I did, i put the neighbors router back to the way I found it, changed the channel on my In-laws router, changed the SSID, stopped broadcasting of the SSID, set encryption/mac filtering and changed the password. BTW, the issue with intermittent surf was also fixed by getting their computer off the neighbors network. It was a strong signal that would drop and come back.