Hundreds of Thousands to Learn About Malware the Hard Way

You know, perhaps this would have gone better if we had outsourced it to the RIAA and MPAA that have so much experience tracking down individual internet activity across the globe. They certainly seem to have no problem finding and notifying the owners of computers accessing bits they oughtn’t.  The FBI is preparing to pull the plug on the internet for hundreds of thousands of folks.

When the DNSChanger malware’s infrastructure was taken down, the DNS servers it redirected infected users to were kept online in harmless form while users were to be notified and have the malware cleaned off their systems.  That ends on Monday, after which all those remaining computers accessing the formerly evil DNS servers will be shooting DNS airballs.

But of course, ignorance is bliss and many remain unaware that anything at all is wrong despite the attempts to educate them.   Generally though, these are folks that need a lesson in security.  It may be bitter medicine, but having to find out why their internet went dark is probably a good thing for the affected users.  Better that they learn a bit about internet hygiene now than via an even harder way later.

But when the security threats go truly mobile and people in such situations have their smartphones stop working or something (and hence 911), it will become much uglier.

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Categories: Government Regulations · Security