It's Monday morning, July 9, you switch on your computer and open up your browser of choice, ready to check your email and update Facebook with photos from the weekend. Only problem is, you can't connect to the internet.
That will probably mean that your computer has been infected by the DNSCharger malware virus.
The DNSChanger was created by a criminal enterprise and what it does is interfere with all of your online activity by invisibly redirecting your Internet service to use the crime syndicate's own set of domain name servers.
The DNSChanger was first discovered five years ago, and the scammers were arrested in their home country of Estonia. The FBI says they made approximately $14 million with the virus before being caught.
The FBI along with a private security company has since then set up servers that allowed infected machines to continue to have access to the web.
The FBI estimates more than 277,000 computers worldwide are infected.
You can check to see if your PC is infected by going to www.dns-ok.us. If you see a green background, you're safe, but if it's red, you have been infected.
If your PC has the DNSChanger malware, you'll be provided links to resources to remove it.
It's not just consumer computers that have been affected by the DNSChanger. Washington-based Internet Identity (IID) Tacoma, which has been monitoring the cleanup efforts said last week that 12 percent of Fortune 500 firms had their computers or routers infected with the DNSChanger. Government computers weren't immune either.
"We're all struggling with this," said Rod Rasmussen, chief technology officer of IID and a member of the DNSChanger Working Group (DCWG), a volunteer organization of security professionals and companies. "There are a lot of people who just haven't gotten the word."
The DCWG worked extensively with ISPs (Internet service providers) to help them alert customers with infected computers and advise them on removing the malware. The group also reached out to enterprises, government agencies and other organizations to offer the same assistance.
