Ten thousand Australian internet users are among four million worldwide who face a total internet blackout from July 9 thanks to a malicious piece of software that infected their computers without their knowledge.
That is the warning to Australian internet users from the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which today issued a statement appealing to internet users to check if they were infected.
The communications regulator, together with other government agencies, has set up the website dns-ok.gov.au for web users to check their computer for the malicious software and remove it if necessary.
The web blackout from July 9 will be enforced by the US FBI, which is shutting down a number of web servers through which infected users' web request traffic has been travelling. It's shutting them down following an investigation into a sophisticated internet fraud ring which used the servers to manipulate people's web browsing.
The malware changes a user's DNS settings, diverting all web requests through servers the FBI seized in November but has been temporarily maintaining to ensure internet services were not disrupted. This maintenance will finish on July 9, meaning computers still infected will face internet troubles.
Go to
www.dns-ok.gov.au (this is an AUSTRALIAN GOVT SITE) to check for the DNSChanger malware
Or google " dns changer australian government "
peterp
