Despite the efforts that authorities have made to prevent computer problems, some people might still be unable to access the Internet on Monday. ABC News published a report informing people what to do if their computers are hit during malware Monday.
The malware that is expected to affect the computers of many Americans on Monday is not new to authorities. On the contrary, they have been dealing with it since 2007 when a group of hackers from Estonia and Russia spread the malicious software through Internet advertisements. The malware called DNS Changer modified the IPs of the computer, so they would automatically redirect the users to sites that they did not search for. FBI described this process as “click hijacking”.
Since there were millions of infested computers, FBI began to look for a solution in 2011. They initially decided to change the servers, but soon realized that this method could leave millions of Internet users without a connection. As a result, they set up temporary servers, so computer owners would have time to check their devices and see whether they were infested or not.
The measures that were adopted by IT experts have significantly diminished the number of infested computers. Thanks to them, numbers dropped to 46,000 in the United States. This is a huge improvement considering that 4 million computers from 100 countries have been affected and 500,000 were in America.
Hackers hit all types of devices from PCs to Apple Macs. Recently released devices have also been infested by the malware called DNS Changer. According to experts, some routers and iPads have been hit, as well. Given these circumstances, FBI has worked with some of the most popular social networks including Facebook to inform people that their computers might have been infested and to enable them to solve this problem before Malware Monday, on July 9th.
If your Internet connection is not working on Monday, it means the new FBI servers have changed your DNS. The safest thing to do in this case is to call your Internet provider who will guide you and help you solve the problem. It will, nevertheless, take around two days to get your connection back.
