Loading ...A DNS malware that infected four million computers has been successfully closed down by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This investigation took two years to come to an end, and sources say that the investigation was conducted under the code name ‘Operation Ghost Click’. This scam has generated revenue of US$ 14 million for the attackers from online advertising clicks.
So how did they generate so much money?
When the users clicked on any malicious link, they were redirected to a different page. Instead of displaying the content they searched for, some other advertisements were displayed on that webpage. The unethical method was employed by the fraudsters to earn revenue from the various advertisers. The hackers involved in the process were also paid handsomely. It is reported that every single click earned them a good amount of money.
How did they do it?
DNSChanger? This malware forced users’ machines to connect to fraud DNS servers directing them to fake IP addresses for almost 15,000 domains.
The malware infected popular websites like iTunes, Amazon, etc. When users went to their page, it did not show the right content, instead large advertisements were displayed. DNSChanger also prevented user systems from accessing any antivirus so that no malware were detected. Reports have it that even high level government networks such as NASA was also infected by the malware and it was NASA that discovered first about the malicious virus.
Media reports say that both PCs and Macs were infected by this malware, and about 500,000 infected computers were from the US alone. According to BBC , this malware scam was the first of its kind because hackers used their own DNS servers instead of infecting other servers.
The US embassy in Estonia and the FBI worked together to unearth this scam, which led to the arrest of seven men – six Estonians and one Russian. They were charged for spreading this malware in more than 100 countries. This is considered to be one of the biggest cyber-criminal takedown in the history till now.
Anonymous threat to attack Facebook on 5 November did not happen. Read full story here .
