Federal Judge moves March 8, to July 9

Mar 13, 2012

Federal Judge moves March 8, to July 9

by Craig Masters

Homeland Security 'cyber defense' HQ

Millions of procrastinators have put off de-bugging the DNS Changer virus from their computers. March 5, federal Judge Denise Cole extended the cut-off date for the FBI servers another 120 days ending July 9, 2012; at least for now.

The extension, says internet security analyst Brian Kebs, will allow some 3 million additional computer users the additional time to clean their infected systems.

But just as Judge Cole was extending the cut-off date for the FBI servers, members of the loosely knit hacker group, Anonymous, have threatened to bring down a substantial portion of the entire Internet by attacking the domain name system (DNS) on March 31, 2012. The group reportedly wants to retaliate for a global FBI sting that netted a number of prominent figures in the shadowy underworld that hides behind the public face of the Web.

According to the Long Island, New York news, The FBI had earlier quietly arrested and turned “Sabu,” a key figure in the Lulzsec splinter group. Anonymous was also still seething over the recent takedown of the file-sharing website Megaupload.

In other internet news, last week the Wall Street Journal reported, “China almost certainly would mount a cyberattack on the U.S. in the event of a conflict, and the U.S. has no clear policy to determine how to respond appropriately, a congressional advisory panel is set to warn on Thursday.”

Meanwhile, in Senate committee hearings Tuesday, FBI director Robert Mueller testified, “Stopping terrorists is the number one priority… But down the road, the cyber threat will be the number one threat to the country. I do not think today it is necessarily [the] number one threat, but it will be tomorrow.”

Share on Facebook