Kill Switch: FBI Could Shut Off Internet for Thousands on March 8 to Eradicate Virus

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Kill Switch: FBI Could Shut Off Internet for Thousands on March 8 t...

Rasmussen said there are still millions of PCs infected with DNSChanger. “At this rate, a lot of users are going to see their Internet break on March 8.”

Krebs reports the FBI saying that it is currently working on ideas to minimize impact on users in that event. Rasmussen says that cleanup, even if the deadline is extended, will still take a long time given the number of computers and says in addition to being “an interesting social experiment”, it would be a faster fix.

Gizmodo reports that once you know you’re computer has a problem, that the fix isn’t too painful or time consuming. You can check to see if you’ve been “victimized” here.

FBI Handout

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in November that this case was first of its kind because the suspects set up their own “rogue” servers to secretly reroute Internet traffic to sites where they had a cut of the advertising revenue.

“Without the computer users’ knowledge or permission, the malware digitally hijacked the infected computers to facilitate the fraud,” the indictment says.

Once their computers were infected, people seeking to visit Netflix, the IRS, ESPN, Amazon and other legitimate sites were redirected to sites where the defendants collected income for each click on an ad, authorities said. The malware and corrupted servers also allowed the defendants to substitute legitimate ads on other websites with replacement ads that earned them more illicit income, they added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.