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21,300 Indians at risk of losing Internet on Monday

21,300 Indians at risk of losing Internet on Monday

By Press Trust of India | Updated: 9 July 2012 12:55 IST

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 today.

DNSChanger is a malware computer program that redirect the Internet traffic to fake websites. (See: Internet blackout Monday: Check if your PC is infected)

A McAfee spokesperson said that according to the data provided by DNS Changer Working Group, India has the third highest number of DNS infections after the US and Italy.

The FBI will shut down servers associated with the DNSChanger malware on July 9. As a result, all computers infected with this threat are likely to no longer be 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 the cybercriminals. 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 who 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 DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG), there are nearly 300,000 infected systems globally, with a maximum of over 69,500 such system in the US. Italy with about 26,500 infected systems is at the second place, followed by India (21,300) and the UK (19,589).

DCWG is an independent group of security experts trying to stem out the DNS Changer malware.

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