When the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) publicly announces a possible catastrophic event, people should better pay attention.

There’s big news that a huge number of people around the world might suffer “Internet Blackouts”, meaning, they won’t be able to access the Web at all on their computers starting July 9, 2012.

This Denial Of Service (DOS)-type scheme is related to a computer Trojan called DNS Changer Malware. This type of malware performs some illicit activity on the computer system when it is run and can allow somebody from a remote site to take control of another computer.

When you’re infected by this DNS Changer, it changes your computer’s Domain Name Server (DNS) to replace your ISP’s provided good DNS servers with rougue DNS servers operated by the DNS Changer author or criminal, in order to divert traffic to fake and illegal sites on the Web and steal your personal informations such as credit card numbers, passwords and usernames, among other things.

In November of 2011, in their “Operation Ghost Click”, the FBI successfully shut down the DNS Changer Botnet using a number of their own DNS servers just to maintain the DNS services of millions of unsuspected victims around the world. This would expire on July 9, 2012.

The DNS Changer Malware is targeting Windows PCs to other platforms that include the Mac OS and home routers as well. Mobile devices may also be affected.

Meanwhile, a technology news blog has written some helpful information on how to check if your computer is affected by this rogue malware and what steps you can do to prevent and get rid of this menacing DNS Changer Malware infection on your computers.

The FBI claimed and admitted that they organized a very unusual system to combat this Trojan malware in the private and Internet domain. While this is the first time the U.S. government intervened to such a problem, the FBI said it wouldn’t be the last of it.

Source: http://technorati.com/technology/article/fbi-to-web-users-many-could/