Still Got DNSChanger on Your System? Fix It Before You Get Booted Off the Net

The DNSChanger botnet has been around for quite some time now. Around five years, to be more specific. Fixes for the malware have already been issued for months, but it has been reported that over 350,000 machines remain infected, up until this day.

That's not very good news because come July, those 350,000 Macs or PCs will no longer be able to access the Internet--unless they fix up their machines and get rid of the bug.

DNSChanger is a trojan that messes up your computer's DNS settings by replacing your Internet service provider's servers with values for rogue DNS servers. It then tries to compromise your LAN networks and router, so that any connected computers will also go to the corrupt DNS servers, infecting all of the machines on the network in the process. As a result, users will be rerouted to spam and malware sites the next time they tried to surf the Internet.

The FBI has since shut down the botnet and coordinated with the Internet Systems Consortium to put up legitimate DNS servers in place of the rogue ones. This has worked fine for several years, but the FBI is planning to shut down the replacement servers, so users who still haven't gotten their systems fixed will go back to getting hit with spam and malware sites.

If you suspect that your machine might be infected with DNSChanger, then you can check its status using the DNS Changer Check-Up site. You can also run a complete system's check using your installed antivirus program.

Article by Hazel Chua
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