DNSChanger Still A Threat

When the FBI on Monday shut down the temporary DNS servers keeping users infected with the DNSChanger Trojan online, only a tiny fraction of users still harbored the malware and some ISPs had established their own DNS backup servers for those stragglers.

All in all, the damage was minimal: just over 210,000 unique IP victims around the globe--a far cry from the initial headcount of millions of victims hit by the nasty malware--still remain infected with the malware, even after aggressive campaigns by many ISPs to alert users and offer them help to clean up their machines.

But the threat is far from over, security experts say.

Paul Vixie, chairman and founder of the Internet Security Consortium (ISC), which actually ran and managed the servers on behalf of the FBI operation, says by pulling the BandAid off slowly and keeping infected users from losing their DNS, ISPs are only masking the danger to victims. "The idea is to rip it [the BandAid] off" instead, he says.

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