Throughout my years of working on computers and especially the past seven out of my store, I’ve heard many conspiracy theories regarding viruses. Of all that I’ve heard I think my favorite is that viruses are created by the government. Until this week I thought it was a crazy idea.
I’ve always wondered why the government, or any other legitimate group for that matter, would want to create or manage a virus. I can understand virus creators wanting to create a virus; after all, a good virus can generate millions of dollars in revenue for the creator.
But the question still remains: why would a legitimate group want to be associated with a virus? Much of what I read is proposed by propagandists so I have to be careful and check my references before I comment on any of it. Tonight, however, I finally confirmed through the FBI’s website that the government is maintaining a virus.
Our government has been maintaining servers initially setup by a virus organization. In 2007 the DNSChanger virus was discovered and the group who created the virus was closed down shortly thereafter. This virus infected millions of computers during the time it was active and many of those computers were never cleaned adequately.
As far as viruses go, this one was very difficult to detect and remove. Most of the time the users never knew they were infected because software didn’t install on the computer. Rather, the computer redirected the user to different websites with advertising prior to pointing to the desired site. Most users probably accepted the additional advertising as normal.
Modifying how a computer surfs the internet opens the doors for additional malicious software to be installed, data to be intercepted, and other software to be hijacked. In practice, if a computer is rerouted then any software that requires updates can be disabled. Creators of the redirecting system can remotely install software from outside the computer. Additionally, any data sent over the internet can easily be intercepted.
I think it’s important to spend a paragraph talking about the detection of this virus. Keep in mind the information from the last paragraph while you’re reading this. Current virus software now scans and removes the DNSChanger virus. However, if the infected computer is being redirected through the criminal’s network then all bets are off whether the virus software will be able to receive current updates and be able to scan for the virus.
DNSChanger was such a well managed virus, the group that created it also targeted Apple computers and networking hardware; neither of which are normal targets. By and large viruses are created only for the Microsoft Windows environment. However, this bugger has the power to redirect and take control of whole networks. Effectively, this virus could have taken control of an office of computers and the users would have no idea.
So in a few short sentences I’m going to re-ask and answer the question: Why would the government maintain virus servers if they didn’t want to spy on people? The answer is quite basic; and from the research I’ve done it sounds like enough people have been infected with this virus so the government feels obligated to maintain the work done by the criminal organization.
This has become newsworthy because the FBI will be discontinuing this service in July and warns that many people will lose internet access. Though internet access at homes and offices across the country may be working perfectly, many computers and networking appliances may be infected. The FBI suggests having computers professionally cleaned if suspected of being infected.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can text him at (978) 413-2840 or call him directly at (978) 919-8059.)