FBI: Web Will Go Dark for 350,000 Infected Internet Users

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
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This is an ominous bit of information provided by the FBI: 350K Internet users face loss of Internet on July 9th. The resulting DNS server shutdown is a remnant of the 4.2M computers infected by the DNSChanger malware from November 2011. Check your computer at the DWCG website to insure that your computer isn’t infected.

But having cleaned all but 350,000 devices, DWCG, the organization tasked to maintain and oversee the servers, announced that the servers will be shut down on July 9. Consequently, infected devices will lose access to the Internet.
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Good riddance. In this day and age, not knowing how to protect your computer or secure your wireless router is no excuse for finding out if you are infected and asking for help or fixing things yourself. A lot of people who have malware infected computers don't even do anything about it and then complain.
 
Makes me wonder why they don't redirect all the web browsing to a FBI warning page telling them they are infected and how to clean it, for a month or so first, unless they already have and I missed it.
 
Man WTF is with people on the East Coast? West Coast people really that more computer savvy?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Man WTF is with people on the East Coast? West Coast people really that more computer savvy?
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Because that's where all the people are? If you look at a map like the one in the article, but for just population, you'd see basically see the same image.
 
This I can agree with. People have zero excuse to run with an infected machine and leave it that way.

I really think that anti hacking/virus laws need to be put into place, and the end user of an attack should be the one held accountable, regardless of if they're actually the one responsible for the virus. If you are being attacked by an IP, you should be able to report that IP, and that IP's internet account user gets a warning to clean up within 24 hours, if they don't, they get suspended until they clean it up. It's too hard and wasteful to go after the actual hackers and most of them are in China anyway, so go after the ones who allow the hackers to use their PC.

It's actually in the interest of ISPs to block off these users, only issue is if one ISP starts doing it, the others may not, so the customer will just move to another, but if they made it the law, it would benefit everyone including the ISPs. Imagine how spam would be reduced if something like this was put into place.
 
metril said:
Good riddance. In this day and age, not knowing how to protect your computer or secure your wireless router is no excuse for finding out if you are infected and asking for help or fixing things yourself. A lot of people who have malware infected computers don't even do anything about it and then complain.
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Because everyone thinks they know better. You can always count on someone saying they don't need antivirus because they don't visit shady sites or install random things. The problem is that most botnets go to great strives to not reveal themselves, or get in via exploits found on legit sites.

In this case however, I'm willing to bet it's mostly machines that are running cracked versions from various places and the owners have no intention on keeping it updated.
 
Pinski said:
Because that's where all the people are? If you look at a map like the one in the article, but for just population, you'd see basically see the same image.
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What??? You mean Africa isn't the most computer savvy region on earth??
 
Ryokurin said:
Because everyone thinks they know better. You can always count on someone saying they don't need antivirus because they don't visit shady sites or install random things. The problem is that most botnets go to great strives to not reveal themselves, or get in via exploits found on legit sites.

In this case however, I'm willing to bet it's mostly machines that are running cracked versions from various places and the owners have no intention on keeping it updated.
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i don't need anti virus because well...i do but currently i've been changing os's like every other week..that said unless the malware is in bios lol, i think i'm ok.


otherwise i genuinely agree with you :D
 
Manaknight said:
i don't need anti virus because well...i do but currently i've been changing os's like every other week..that said unless the malware is in bios lol, i think i'm ok.


otherwise i genuinely agree with you :D
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You could still get infected between OS's and the your contributing to the problem for no other reason then "hey look at me! i don't need AV because i am careful!"

not using AV to me is like driving with out a seat belt, sure you may drive safe, but others around you may not.
 
devil22 said:
Makes me wonder why they don't redirect all the web browsing to a FBI warning page telling them they are infected and how to clean it, for a month or so first, unless they already have and I missed it.
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Because its the government. They probably don't have the capacity to handle 350,000 clients spamming their webservers. Nor do they have the financial approval to pay a 3rd party vendor to do it. On top of that I really don't want to pay the taxes for it when a blank white page will work just as well. :cool:

I really don't know why they didn't do this much earlier.
 
To be brutally honest, would this really be such a bad thing? Seriously, if your computer has been infected for months and you still don't know it, being removed from the internet might be the best thing that could happen...to the rest of us. ;)

The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org , that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.
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I have to agree with Steve, that it could be a good thing for the rest of us.

I have my router at home hand out OpenDNS servers via DHCP and reserve my main computer's address. Nothing is impossible, but I think a DNS hack on my computer would only be temporary (until the DHCP lease expires). Also, I'd probably notice since I have DNS filtering enabled and certain sites would not be blocked anymore. If the DNS hack changed my computer's IP address, I would notice very quickly also because my TeamSpeak server would stop working.

I think we'd all agree, though, that this blackout isn't for people like us. It's for people like some of my colleagues that don't run anti-virus or run Windows updates. My company did a work from home test throughout last week, so I had to work with everyone to get their home computers in an acceptable status to join our VPN system. Most people are in good shape. But then there are the few that have Internet Explorer from a couple years back and no anti-virus.

A computer should be maintained like other equipment we use. If you don't know how to do it yourself, you should have it serviced every six months I say.
 
I hope they do cut them off. It'll help generate money for my wallet.

You can only help people along for so long, eventually, you gotta cut the cord and make them pay for their mistakes.
 
Oh, man, this is gonna be epic!

Checked the dcwg.org site and it returns this...

"Service Unavailable. Please try again later."

I can see millions of seniors calling their representatives for tech support ... "My AOL isn't working!" :D
 
014 said:
A computer should be maintained like other equipment we use. If you don't know how to do it yourself, you should have it serviced every six months I say.
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Ideally, I think a lot of people would like to maintain their computers a bit better, but then they have to choose between paying some shady GeekSquad guy to snoop through their personal files or bug the heck out of their nephew. Since it's more time-consuming, expensive, and hassle-prone than the kind of maintenance we usually perform for other equipment (oil changes for cars), I can see why people neglect it. I mean, when's the last time you had a routine/preventative maintenance call for your microwave/fridge/washer/dryer/stove? ;)

I think we're slowly approaching the day when a simple Linux installation is the easiest, most hassle-free choice for the casual crowd that just wants to surf the web and read their email. (The corner cases that still plague Linux distros apply more to power users and those who need to use specific programs or hardware for their work.) Thanks to smart phones and such, people are getting more familiar with using non-Windows interfaces for basic computer needs. The problem is that there's invariably a single random third party program they need, or a game their daughter wants to play, which still only runs on Windows (or worse, a hardware device with only Windows drivers). Still, whenever my mom tells me her computer is having problems (security issues, "Windows rot," or other weirdness), I get more than a little tempted to see how she fares with something a little different.
 
trap.jpg
 
Why wait till July? They should have cut them off as soon as any investigations where complete.
 
Mini-Me said:
I get more than a little tempted to see how she fares with something a little different.
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Yeah, I did that with my Mum, I ended up spending twice as much time getting things to work for her and spending thrice as much time explaining why a certain program she wanted didn't work and trying to find/install/compile some buggy and feature limited open source alternative with the most unintuitive UI possible... until I gave up and reinstalled Windows :p
 
What was that I read about weeping, and gnashing of teeth? This is going to be beautiful.
 
Mini-Me said:
I think we're slowly approaching the day when a simple Linux installation is the easiest, most hassle-free choice for the casual crowd that just wants to surf the web and read their email. (The corner cases that still plague Linux distros apply more to power users and those who need to use specific programs or hardware for their work.) Thanks to smart phones and such, people are getting more familiar with using non-Windows interfaces for basic computer needs. The problem is that there's invariably a single random third party program they need, or a game their daughter wants to play, which still only runs on Windows (or worse, a hardware device with only Windows drivers). Still, whenever my mom tells me her computer is having problems (security issues, "Windows rot," or other weirdness), I get more than a little tempted to see how she fares with something a little different.
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The bad thing with Linux though, it's even worse if you don't maintain it. Linux is inherently no more secure than Windows, but less people target it, and if you don't install security updates your Linux box is just as vulnerable to being rootkitted or rooted or what have you. It's the same deal with OS X, did you see what happened when someone did decide to target it? Everyone got infected because they believed that the operating system itself was so "secure".
 
acfrazier said:
The bad thing with Linux though, it's even worse if you don't maintain it. Linux is inherently no more secure than Windows, but less people target it, and if you don't install security updates your Linux box is just as vulnerable to being rootkitted or rooted or what have you. It's the same deal with OS X, did you see what happened when someone did decide to target it? Everyone got infected because they believed that the operating system itself was so "secure".
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I'd say the strongest argument against the security of Linux is that Linux users are overconfident that nothing is going wrong in their system...I'll take that criticism.

Windows made great strides with Vista/Windows 7 in the security department, but I'd say that Linux really is a bit more inherently secure though, for the following reasons that I'm aware of (there may be others I'm not):
  • The entire software culture is different: Windows is based on a principle of binary compatibility to accomodate proprietary software, which has encouraged an environment where people habitually download third party programs from unverified sources and run them. Linux is much different, particularly Debian-based distros, because people become more accustomed to downloading the vast majority of their software from signed repositories. The system is still decentralized (there's no one repository to rule them all), but it helps when everything you download is "vouched for" by someone in the web of trust...who has not yet been kicked out of that web yet. ;) Granted, this is a huge pain when a piece of software you want is NOT in the repositories, because that means it might not be available at all, and if it is, Linux isn't known for its up-to-date AV programs.
  • I am firmly in the camp that open source software is inherently more secure than proprietary software, and that applies to the operating system and application programs. Since Linux relies on an entire ecosystem of free software, it reaps a lot of benefits here. You may disagree with the whole principle here, but it's my view at least.
  • The principle of least control has been instituted for much longer in Linux (from the start), so it's less likely to be a leaky ship.
  • The mandatory access control in Linux is implemented in less of a "casual click-through" manner: People are also more likely to take a second to think when they're asked for their password rather than just to "click here."

I'm not trying to partake in a religious war here or anything...just justifying my thoughts above, which carried the implicit assumption that Linux is more secure.

I do think access control could/should go a lot farther though. Most security problems seem to come from vulnerabilities and exploits in popular application software, especially browsers (damn you, Javascript!), so distributions should really be coming with something like AppArmor profiles that sandbox the crap out of web browsers.
 
The cocky jerk talk in this thread is unbelievable. Think this through, for pete's sake.

1. Somebody visits a legit website that has been hacked to serve malware via ad scripting that exploits an unpatched OS vulnerability. Now their DNS settings are redirected to malicious DNS servers.

2. The feds track down the hackers and shut down the servers, but substitute new, safe redirecting DNS servers to avoid cutting off the victims from DNS access. However, they take no action to inform the affected users of their situation.

3. The feds get tired of running the servers and decide to shut them down. Now they make a feeble effort to get the word out indirectly through media channels.

How is any of this the user's fault? How do you even know that anti-virus software would have detected and stopped the intrusion? There are no symptoms, no warnings. The user did not open an attachment, click on a shady link, or choose to try out a "nifty free program."

Then look at the feds' failures. They know that, by definition, any computer that hits their servers is compromised. How hard is it to set up a message page that will appear to inform the user of their situation each time they browse the web, instead of expecting all umpty-billion web users to run a check to find out if they are one of the compromised ones? This thinking is so backwards and inept it boggles my mind.

And now to shut down the servers (which cost them pocket change to maintain) and STILL do nothing proactive to notify the affected people. This happened MONTHS ago and this is the first I've heard of it, and I visit tech news sites almost every day!

Ignorance is not a crime. These people did nothing wrong, and had no way of knowing that something was wrong. Why pour your mockery and contempt on them? I'm glad I'm a tech-savvy person, but I don't think that everyone should have to be in order to use and enjoy technology. When something goes wrong on my car, I need a little luck and a lot of research/advice to fix it myself. If it's serious, I have to pay a professional. Does that mean I shouldn't be allowed to drive? Or that everyone should feel entitled to jeer and spit at me and throw beer bottles if they pass me broken down on the side of the road?

Or, since this is an "infection," let's try a medical analogy. "Oh, so you were feeling fine, and last night you started coughing up blood? Couldn't be bothered to get a full cancer screening four times a year just to be safe, huh? Tough luck for you, then--you should have had your priorities straight. No chemo for you! I'll laugh as I watch you sicken and die, happy that at least my insurance costs won't go up thanks to your carelessness!"
 
Silly question... I must have been living under a rock because I hadn't heard much about this. If I have a tool that shows the DNS on each workstation on my network, does anyone know what DNS address I would be looking for to see if it was infected?
 
Yay, I am not infected! Very interesting.. Can't wait for July 9th lol
 
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