In about two weeks, hundreds of thousands of computer users are going to learn the hard way that failing to keep a clean machine comes with consequences. On July 9, 2012, any systems still infected with the DNSChanger Trojan will… Read More »
Millions of PCs sickened by a global computer contagion known as DNSChanger were slated to have their life support yanked on March 8. But an order handed down Monday by a federal judge will delay that event by 120 days to give companies, businesses and governments more time to respond to the epidemic.
The reprieve came late Monday, when the judge overseeing the U.S. government’s landmark case against an international cyber fraud network agreed that extending the deadline was necessary “to continue to provide remediation details to industry channels approved by the FBI.”
More than two months after authorities shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme, the malicious software that powered the criminal network is still running on computers at half of the Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50 percent of all federal government agencies, new research shows.
The malware, known as the “DNSChanger Trojan,” quietly alters the host computer’s Internet settings to hijack search results and to block victims from visiting security sites that might help scrub the infections. DNSChanger frequently was bundled with other types of malware, meaning that systems infected with the Trojan often also host other, more nefarious digital parasites.
Egyptian citizens calling for besieged President Hosni Mubarak to step down may have been cut off from using the Web, but spammers have been busy cutting the government off from its own Internet address space: Earlier this month, junk e-mail artists hijacked a swath of Internet addresses assigned to Mubarak’s wife.
A couple of readers have written in to say they recently received scam telephone calls warning them about fraud on their credit card accounts and directing them to call a phone number to “verify” their credit card numbers.
These sometimes-automated attacks prompt people to call a supplied telephone number — often a toll-free line. In most cases, the calls will be answered by bogus interactive voice response system designed to coax account credentials and other personal information from the caller.
