The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

FBI server shutdown to cut internet for thousands

Author

By John Glenday, Reporter

July 9, 2012 | 1 min read

More than 300k people, some of them in the UK, face losing access to the internet today as the FBI closes servers being utilised by cyber criminals later today.

The servers were seized last November following an operation to disrupt a criminal gang which had been diverting legitimate web traffic through the servers in order to spread viruses and malware.

The ruse centred on a technique known as DNS Changer, which saw the gang take control of the domain name look-up service, when the computer translates words typed by a user into a numerical web address.

This allowed them to switch online adverts for their own, netting themselves some £9m in the process.

Despite being closed down the network is still active with 300k people globally, about 20k of them in the UK, still unknowingly infected by the DNS Changer virus.

Sean Sullivan, a security researcher at F-Secure, said: "Initially some domains will be cached which will mean web access will be spotty. People will be confused about why some things work and some do not."

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +