Thousands of PCs may lose Internet access from Monday

Thousands of computers in India, which are hit by a malicious virus DNSChanger, may lose Internet access from Monday, according to Web security firm McAfee.

DNSChanger is a malware computer programme that redirects Internet traffic to fake websites.

These affected machines are likely lose Web access as FBI will shut down servers associated with the DNSChanger malware on July 9. As a result, it is likely that all computers infected with this threat will no longer be able to access the Internet, a McAfee spokesperson said.

Last year, the FBI, as a part of 'Operation Ghost Click', took control of the servers used by the cybercriminals. FBI then replaced the rogue servers with temporary legitimate servers so as not to disrupt the web activities of those infected.

However, these servers were allowed only till July 9, 2012.

Quoting data from DNS Changer Working Group, a McAfee spokesperson said India has the third highest number of DNS infections after the US and Italy.

According to the data by DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG), there are nearly 300,000 infected systems globally, with a maximum of over 69,500 such system in the US.

Italy with about 26,500 infected systems is at the second place, followed by India (21,300) and the UK (19,589).

An Indian Computer Emergency Response Team official told PTI that "around 50,000 computers in India were found infected with DNSChanger malware. Over half of them have been cleaned. We are still tracing infected computers. Systems that are still infected will face problem in accessing Internet." DCWG is an independent group of security experts trying to stem out the DNS Changer malware.