Rouge Servers are being Shut Down

July 6, 2012 at 2:19 pm | Posted in Computers, Internet, Online services, Security, Software | 1 Comment

An old virus changed peoples Internet DNS settings to point them to rouge servers that would redirect them to fake web sites. The US caught them and arrested the perpetrators. But because taking the servers down would disrupt thousands of people, the US government corrected and maintained the servers for awhile. Then the budget folks stepped up and said enough. They’re shutting them down Monday. If you have the infection, you may not know it.

It’s easy to check. This is the quick test site:
www.dns-ok.us

People with DNS settings pointing to these servers will be unable to get to any web sites after they shut the servers down. They’ll be on-line but without a DNS server, their browser won’t be able to convert from, for example, “google.com” to the actual Internet IP address of the Google server. So they’ll just get “unable to locate” errors.

If you have maintained your anti-virus, you’re unlikely to be infected. If you use a router, it has your DNS settings and is unlikely to be affected (it runs Linux). But if you got infected, even if the virus was removed, your DNS settings may still be changed. Its worth the very quick test above.

If you have the issue:
1) remove the malware. You can use an on-line scanner like ESETs.

2) contact your Internet provider to get the correct DNS IPs and instructions for entering them.
(you set 2 in case one is busy or down)
Or you can browse articles like this.

More at Yahoo News

[Update] Infopackets on this

For those just fine, you can also speed your web site connections by using a large public DNS system rather than a local ISPs. This site mentions some of the faster DNS sites. I use OpenDNS. As comments mention, you can use Ping to check which is fastest from your location.

Safe Surfing!
David

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