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Facebook warns hundreds of thousands may lose Internet in July

07/06/2012 03:22:00 Oratert News
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Facebook announced Tuesday that it had joined a consortium of other companies and security experts to help alert hundreds of thousands of websurfers of a computer infection called DNSChanger that may knock their computers off the Internet this summer

Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system will be shut down July 9 -- killing connections for those people.

The FBI has run an impressive campaign for months, encouraging people to visit a website that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.

Infected Facebook users will now be treated to a special message when visiting the social network that informing them of their potential risk as well as helping them clean it up.

"Facebook's Product Security Team is working constantly to protect users from malicious content and malware like viruses, trojans, and worms," Facebook wrote in a blog post Tuesday, June 4.

"As a result of our work with the DNSChanger Working Group, Facebook is now able to notify users likely infected with DNSChanger malware and direct them to instructions on how to clean their computer or networks."


 
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