It sounds like one of those annoying chain emails that show up from technically challenged acquaintances.
“The FBI Will Take Your Computer Offline July 9 If It Has A Virus!
Visit This Site Immediately To Check!! Forward This To Everyone You Know!!!”
But the Federal Bureau of Investigation really has posted a warning on its site about the risk of “DNSChanger” malware, which really will result in your computer getting disconnected from the web on July 9 if you don’t clean it up.
Last November the bureau announced it had broken up a 4-year-old Estonia-based conspiracy. The suspects had infected about 4 million computers — a half-million in the United States — with malware called DNSChanger that diverted victims to scam sites.
Once an infected machine has been cuffed to DNSChanger’s rogue servers, shutting it off would effectively unplug it from the Internet. The FBI secured a court order requiring the Internet Systems Consortium, a nonprofit Net-architecture firm, to take over and sanitize those servers. That will happen July 9.
You can find out if your PC is infected at www.dns-ok.us; if you see a green background to the image on that page and the words “DNS Resolution = GREEN,” you’re safe. (see graphic above)
If you don’t get the green light, Microsoft has offered some help repairing your PC.
1) If you were in the market for a new PC anyway, back up your vital files and junk the sick one sitting on your desk. It’s as good an excuse as any to drop a few hundred bucks on a new machine.
2) Back up your files, reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows. Check out the company’s instructions here.
3) The DNSChanger Working Group compiled a list of free removal tools you can download and run. Again, make sure you back up.