In November of 2011, the FBI caught and arrested six Estonian hackers on charges for designing and distributing a powerful computer virus, called DNSChanger. This virus would redirect customer's web searches, giving bogus search results with bogus advertisements. The sites that web users were sent to were dangerous in and of themselves, automatically downloading even more viruses and spyware onto their computers.
The true danger of this malicious virus, however, is the ability that it had to block virus scan programs from updating. Virus scan programs are used to clean your system of these kinds of dangers, but DNSChanger would stop your program from updating its virus database, meaning that no matter how many times you scanned your computer, it wouldn't ever realize there was a problem.
This capability was the most perplexing to users, as their software reported no problems, but it was also part of what made it so hard for computer gurus to fix. A virus this good at hiding its tracks requires extensive know-how in order to clean up, and many users still have the virus.
The FBI commissioned servers to be temporarily created, allowing users with the DNSChanger virus to retain their access to the internet. Users were contacted as quickly as possible, warned of the virus, and given instruction and directions to remove it as quickly as possible. Due to the large number of infected computers, the FBI have had to leave the servers up past their intended shutdown time.
On Monday, however, the servers will be shutdown regardless of the 304,000 people who still haven't cleaned up the virus. Access to the world's most pervasive and powerful resource of information, gone in the blink of an eye. Getting the virus cleaned up without internet access could prove to be a very tricky process.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/06/technology/dnschanger/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/06/technology/dnschanger/index.htm
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