"Internet Doomsday" or "Malware Monday" as it came to be known, has come and gone. But what was the damage to the infected IPS with the DNS Changer Malware virus?
According to security experts, the damage was less than expected. There were just over 210,000 unique IP victims around the world, much lower than what the FBI and web security companies anticipated.
There has been a major campaign over recent weeks, warning internet users to check if they were infected with the DNS Changer Malware before July 9, when those users still infected, will be unable to connect to the internet. A simple domain, www.dns-ok.us, was set up to check if computers had the malware.
Internet Service Providers (or ISPs), like Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable, have been working with the FBI since January, pinpointing those with infected computers and instructing them on how to remove the DNS malware.
The DNS Changer was created by a criminal enterprise and what it does is interfere with all of your online activity by invisibly redirecting your Internet service to use the crime syndicates own set of domain name servers.
The scammers were arrested in their home country of Estonia. The FBI says they made approximately $14 million with the virus before being caught.
The FBI along with a private security company has since then set up servers that allowed infected machines to continue to have access to the web.
Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable said they informed users by sending emails and old-fashioned letters, making phone calls to them, even putting pop-up messages in their browsers.
"We did another last push last week and we even sent another hard copy letter to users. As a result, less than 1/10th of 1 percent will be affected by today's change," said Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesperson, according to the ABC news.
