Few knocked off Web as malware safety net expires

If you’re reading this online, you’re fine. The day that was supposed to see thousands of people knocked off the Internet has arrived, but only a few people were affected.

Thousands of Internet users across the U.S. and beyond waited too long or simply didn’t believe warnings that they would lose access to the Internet because of malware that took over computers around the world more than a year ago.
At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, the FBI turned off Internet servers that were functioning as a temporary safety net to keep infected computers online for the past eight months.

FBI officials have been tracking the number of computers they believe still may be infected by the malware. As of Sunday night, there were about 41,800 in the U.S., down from 45,600 on July 4. Worldwide, the total is roughly 211,000 infected. An estimated 2.3 billion people around the world use the Internet, according to Internet World Stats.

The company added that it has notified affected customers “using a variety of methods, including email, phone calls, and postal mail correspondence.”
In South Korea, there were no reports from affected computers Monday. As many as 80 computers there are believed to be infected with the malware that may cause problems in Web surfing, down from 1,798 computers in February, according to the government.
“The impact will be limited,” said Lee Sang-hun, head of network security at the Korea Communications Commission, a government body.
The government and private broadband providers opened helplines and issued warnings. They also asked users to check if their computers were infected and to download antivirus software.

In a highly unusual move, the FBI set up the safety net. They brought in a private company to install two clean Internet servers to take over for the malicious servers so that people would not suddenly lose their Internet.
And they arranged for a private company to run a website, www.dcwg.org, to help computer users determine whether their computer was infected and find links to other computer security business sites where they could find fixes for the problem.
Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser at computer security firm Sophos, said it would have been better to turn off the safety net earlier, so that people can clean up their computers.
“There is only so much responsibility the American government has to continue to run this stuff,” he said. “If you still have this virus, it’s likely that you have others.”