Saturday, July 7, 2012

Virus Warning

Sounds real to me........

 Source:  Voice of America Virus Could Leave Thousands Unable to Use Internet Monday

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world could be in for an unwelcome surprise Monday, unless they check their computers now for malware that infected their machines a year ago.

The virus caused by Eastern European computer hackers will make it impossible to access the Internet
Facebook and Google, websites used by billions of people every day, are alerting users who they suspect may have infected computers. They also provide information on what people can do to fix the problem.

The hackers used an online advertising scam to take control of nearly 600,000 computers last year, harvesting information about users and directing them to fraudulent websites.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation smashed the computer ring and temporarily set up two Internet servers so that users can remain on line.

But that temporary fix will be closed down at 0401 UTC Monday.

Along with Facebook, Google and some global computer security firms, the FBI can provide information on how to find out if your computer is infected and how it can be fixed


Source CNN Money CNN - Virus Could Leave Thousands Unable to Use Internet Monday

Still, the FBI decided to give people even more time to check for the malware, extending the deadline until July. The agency now says the time has come to cut the cord, and the emergency servers will be shut down on Monday.

Though the FBI tried to send notifications to those infected, it could not identify all of them, a spokesman said.

To help the users still infected, the agency laid out a

Step by Step plan on how to check to see if your computer has the virus.




9 comments:

OrbsCorbs said...

It's real. Go to http://dns-ok.us/. If you see a green background, you're good. If it's red, you're in trouble.

kkdither said...

Snopes confirms this to be true.

Cool weblink, orbs. Sort of? The disclaimer is shaky.

If you are using a realtime antivirus with automatic updates, I believe you would be up to date. This should have been caught already if it is resident on your device... I think.
Trend Micro Housecall is a good online scanner as is Panda Active Scan and Kaspersky. All of them are free. I use one or the other every once and awhile in addition to my regular antivirus. It is a good idea to get a "second opinion" from time to time since no antivirus is perfect.

I'm going to run a scan tonight, just in case. By the way, they take FOREVER to run and complete.

kkdither said...

Trend Micro has greatly improved their free online scan. I just downloaded it and ran it. Very quick download, and the scan took only 10 minutes.


I was clean. Well... I do shower often! ;>

Thanks, SER for the reminder to take care of business.

OrbsCorbs said...

kk, ok site as far as I know. I got it from a news story a couple of days ago.

I believe that anyone with regular and updated antivirus would be clean. I was.

MinnesotaChick said...

I've been reading about this for months.
I'm clean :D

OrbsCorbs said...

http://www.kval.com/news/local/Thousands-of-Americans-may-lose-their-internet-on-Monday--161691155.html?tab=video&c=y

SER said...

I looked at the FBI (step by step) and it gives you the bad IP addresses and tells (shows you) how to check yours.

It's simple and only takes a minutes...I'm clean.

I took mine in the shower along with my shoes because they were dirty also. It took the computer a little longer to boot, it had to spin all the water out of the hard drive.

Tender Heart Bear said...

I was told by Harbor PC not to worry about it because are computer is newer.

OrbsCorbs said...

Hooray. It's Monday and I'm still onli