Last year, a computer virus producing group that had infected over 4 million computers worldwide with what is called the DNS Changer Trojan was brought to justice by the FBI. The primary impact of this infection is that it caused web surfers to be sent to fraudulent websites by changing what is called the DNS settings on compromised computers.

When the FBI pinched this group, everyone that was infected could have instantly been cut off from the Internet so the FBI chose a different strategy.They obtained a court order allowing them to replace the rogue DNS servers with legitimate stand-ins so that all the infected computers wouldn’t get cut off without warning and giving the FBI time to get the word out.

The court order runs out on March 8, 2012, so anyone still infected with the DNS Changer Trojan after that date will no longer be able to access the Internet because the temporary DNS servers won’t be online anymore.

Both Windows and Mac OS users are at risk for this infection because it
exploits your browser, not your operating system.

If you are somewhat technical, you can do a self-check of your computer to make sure you’re not infected by comparing your computer’s DNS setting to this list of rogue DNS servers:

85.255.112.0 through 85.255.127.255
67.210.0.0 through 67.210.15.255
93.188.160.0 through 93.188.167.255
77.67.83.0 through 77.67.83.255
213.109.64.0 through 213.109.79.255
64.28.176.0 through 64.28.191.25

The FBI has published a pretty decent guide to performing the self-check at:  but if you aren’t comfortable doing the check yourself, make sure you consult a tech savvy friend or professional to avoid getting cut off on March 8.

If you are infected by the DNS Changer Trojan, the FBI reminds us that this malware also disables security updates which could have further exposed you to other malware. Be sure you have a thorough cleanup performed and you get aught up on all the missing updates if you find your computer has been compromised as detection and removal is just the beginning of the process.