ONE LAST(?) TIME:

A Final Warning

By now, it is expected that everyone here has checked to see if they might be infected with the DNSChanger malware.

The FBI substitute sites will shut down at midnight, Monday, July 9 (US Eastern Time) or around 05:00(?) am Greenwich/Universal time.

The current estimate is that approximately 270,000 computers will lose all contact with the Internet at that time.

This includes an estimated 70,000 computers in the US.

This includes computers at approximately 50 "Fortune 500" corporations that are still infected.

The DNSChanger malware also disables at least some parts of most AntiMalware (AntiVirus) programs so you can't rely on them to remove it. IF YOU NEED TO clean up while you still have Internet connection, several sites can download/repair AV software. If you lose Internet Access, you will not be able to use that method.

IF you can't connect after the shutdown, your only recourse will probably be to call your ISP (Internet Service Provider). So where do you get their phone number? - Of course, from their website.(Wanna bet on it???????)

Sites you connnect with can tell if you've been "redirected" and in a stroke of genius, Facebook has been posting notices that "Your computer appears to be infected with malware. Click here."

Since the same notice is currently THE NUMBER ONE SCAM on the 'net, nobody with a functioning brain cell should click any message of this kind, and it should be expected that the malware distributors have already replicated the FB message, so you might get one that looks exactly like the "real" Facebook one from malicious sources. Or you might get lucky???

Google has also been notiying infected users who connect to the Google site, but their message has not been described (that I've seen) and it's unclear whether they only notify those who connect to the Google home site, or if it also applies to users of Google search.

Any of us here (at least those who look at Tech threads) should have little reason to be concerned, althouth there's a slight possibility someone could have been infected from one of the 270,000 dummies who haven't gotten the message.

If you would like to check "one last time" the link given by trustworthy sources is http://www.dcwg.org. This site gives you a list of satellite sites that can run the check for you if you click on the "Detect" button. (Although the site addresses in the table don't display as links in my browser, they will take you to the correct test for your locale.)

John