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Doomsday virus fizzles out.

velocityg4

velocityg4

macrumors 604
Original poster
Dec 19, 2004
7,345
4,735
Georgia
Discovery News said:
The Internet "doomsday virus" that people were warned about over the weekend didn't quite materialize Monday — but that doesn't mean the threat isn't real.
Several large American Internet service providers, among them AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner Cable, picked up where the FBI left off early Monday morning. The ISPs were redirecting Web traffic to make sure any customers affected by the DNSChanger malware would still be able to get online.
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http://news.discovery.com/tech/doomsday-virus-fizzles-120710.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1


What I don't get is why has this been handled so poorly from the get go? When the FBI originally took over these servers instead of letting people affected keep browsing as usual. Everything they tried to do on the internet should have been redirected to a page with the FBI logo stating their computer is infected get it fixed by a professional or do it yourself and provide download links to the removal program. If you can do absolutely nothing online you are going to get the hint.



Now the ISP's should at least send a letter to every affected customer alerting them of the same thing. Instead some are helping them remove it, some are doing nothing and letting their computers go offline and some are just letting the problem continue by creating their own DNS server.
 
You're right. That does sound like a bad solution. If these computers have one virus (DNSchanger), they likely have another as well. Let these people know there's a problem and hire a professional to fix it. Like me. I can use the money. :D
 
The reason they did not do that from the get go was because it would mean huge number of people would be effected by it in one hit plus it would slam those servers.

I honestly feel it was handled really well and how it fizzled out was a good thing. It mean the FBI did their job correctly and others that jumped in as well did it correctly. It is one of those things you just want to slowly die off.

That is why they left them running for so long to give time for the word to get out and things get corrected in a controlled non panic method. It is hard to get the needed tools to remove said virus if you can not go onto the internet to download them.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
The reason they did not do that from the get go was because it would mean huge number of people would be effected by it in one hit plus it would slam those servers.

I honestly feel it was handled really well and how it fizzled out was a good thing. It mean the FBI did their job correctly and others that jumped in as well did it correctly. It is one of those things you just want to slowly die off.

That is why they left them running for so long to give time for the word to get out and things get corrected in a controlled non panic method. It is hard to get the needed tools to remove said virus if you can not go onto the internet to download them.
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imo, if there are still computers affected by this virus then its a failure to fix the problem. all that they've been doing has been a stop-gap solution that works for not but not forever. especially since there was and is a way of identifying the affected machines, people should be notified of the problem so they can fix it and then we wouldn't have this problem of people losing their internet abilities suddenly and without warning.
 
PlaceofDis said:
imo, if there are still computers affected by this virus then its a failure to fix the problem. all that they've been doing has been a stop-gap solution that works for not but not forever. especially since there was and is a way of identifying the affected machines, people should be notified of the problem so they can fix it and then we wouldn't have this problem of people losing their internet abilities suddenly and without warning.
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How many people even knew about it, supposedly the FBI was warning pepole a year ago, I just heard about it last week.
 
MacNut said:
How many people even knew about it, supposedly the FBI was warning pepole a year ago, I just heard about it last week.
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my point is that since the FBI and ISPs are able to identify who has the virus because of they are using those specific DNS servers, they could have contacted them by blocking the internet with a splash page that informs them that they have a virus with links to info/tools to remove it. setting up DNS servers to maintain their connection to the 'net does no good since they're unlikely to even know they have the virus.
 
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