Virus-hit PCs may lose internet access, says McAfee

Virus-hit PCs may lose internet access, says McAfee India has the third-highest number of DNS infections after the United States and Italy. Nearly 3 lakh DNSChanger virus-hit computers, including over 20,000 in India, may lose Internet access from July 9, Web security company McAfee said on Friday. DNSChanger is a malware computer programme that redirects the Internet traffic to fake websites. A McAfee spokesperson said that according to the data provided by DNSChanger Working Group, India has the third-highest number of DNS infections after the United States and Italy. The Federal Bureau of Investigation will shut down servers associated with the DNSChanger malware on July 9. As a result, all computers infected with this threat are likely to be no longer able to access the Internet, the spokesperson said. Last year, the FBI, as a part of ‘Operation Ghost Click’, took control of the servers used by cybercriminals. The FBI then replaced the rogue servers with temporary legitimate servers so as not to disrupt the web activities of those infected. However, these servers were allowed only till July 9, 2012. McAfee has released a free tool to help consumers whose machines have been infected by the DNSChanger trojan. “By providing a free tool that walks them through the process, we are making it easy for consumers to fix their settings and stay connected,” Vincent Weafer, senior vice-president, McAfee Labs, said in a statement. According to the data by DNSChanger Working Group (DCWG), there are nearly 300,000 infected systems globally, with a maximum of over 69,500 such system in the U.S. Italy, with about 26,500 infected systems, is at the second place, followed by India (21,300) and the U.K. (19,589). The DCWG is an independent group of security experts trying to stem out the DNSChanger malware.