As you all probably know by know, people have been somewhat concerned over losing their Internet today. The DNSChanger malware and the servers the FBI was using to reroute infected machines will be shut down today. Unfortunately, there may be some civilian casualties as some U.S. citizen’s internet connectivity may die with the servers. A collection of ISPs are making sure that doesn’t happen.
The Wall Street Journal reports that various ISPs around the country are doing what they can to ensure their users don’t end up without Internet today. While only 64,000 computers are thought to be infected with the malware, that’s still 64,000 angry phone calls asking why they can’t tell people they ate this morning on Facebook.
Comcast has apparently already identified their customers with infected machines and has helped them become clean before the killswitch date of midnight last night. Verizon will be playing the wait and see game and then sending technicians to those who have lost connectivity. Finally, AT&T just says that they have “taken steps” to ensure their customers don’t lose their Internet connection.
If you’re reading this story right now, it should be pretty apparent that your machine was clean. Other people might not be so lucky. If you find that a neighbor or somebody you know is without Internet, have them call up their ISP. They should be able to sort it out and get them back to surfing in no time.
While the DNSChanger was a pretty nasty piece of malware, it shouldn’t have any lingering after effects beyond potentially cutting people off from the Internet. Even then, the problem is easily fixed so nobody should be worrying about an FBI plot to collect your information or shut down the Internet.
For more information on Operation Ghost Click and how to get help for those infected, check out the FBI’s page on the matter. It has all the information you could possibly want on Operation Ghost Click and what you can do to help those who find themselves suddenly unable to express themselves on Twitter.