Now that the July 9 deadline has come and gone, it appears few experienced a loss of their internet connection after all. According to the FBI (who shut down its temporary replacement DNS servers at 12:01 AM on Monday, as expected), only about 41,800 infected computers were accessing them from the United States as of Sunday night. That number was down almost 4,000 from the number recorded on July 4.
Several of the larger internet providers are stepping up to the plate, providing their own replacement DNS servers to give infected users even more time to clean up their computers without disruption of service. While AT&T indicates only a “small percentage” of their customers are affected, it’s providing those customers with servers through the end of this year. Time Warner Cable indicates it’s doing the same, although the company wouldn’t specify how many customers have the malware infection. Unlike AT&T, Time Warner isn’t giving a specific time frame before replacement DNS servers are taken back down. Instead, TWC promises to simply contact affected customers individually and help them correct their issues.
Senior security adviser, Chester Wisniewski, at Sophos feels it would have been better for the FBI to turn off their safety net of custom DNS servers earlier, forcing users to confront the issue and clean their infected machines. He said, “There is only so much responsibility the American government has to continue to run this stuff.” Wisniewski points out that if you’ve got this particular infection on your computer, you likely have others too. I couldn’t agree more.
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