Virus ISP and DNS root server upgrades
It comes as a surprise to many people that ISP's in the United States can in fact have devious intention. ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. The specific affected ISP was located in Northern California and operated under the name Triple Fiber Network. One of the more inappropriate things that they were doing, was distributing bogus free antivirus. This type of "free antivirus" software will pretend to scan your system. The program will attempt to mimic a Windows Vista or Windows XP screen in your browser or on your computer. Surprisingly, the scan will progress and will find supposed viruses along the way. Often these antivirus will state that you have the worst possible viruses and you should quickly click continue to get additional protection. Unfortunately, the user will be lead to a payment page and will probably have to pay some exurbanite amount of money. Upon download of the free antivirus the user will be surprised to find out that they in fact get a completely useless program that has no protection at all. In addition, the program will probably install additional spyware and viruses to steal the users information in the future.
I think that it is appalling that a server in the USA was able to distribute malware with such impunity. I think the FTC summed up the seizure in a few words and stated that the with the fake antivirus ISP gone, the internet community as a whole will significantly benefit.
People are unaware of the dangers to the basic fundamental infrastructure of the internet. A quick background. Whenever, a user types in a domain name such as www.yahoo.com the request from their internet browser connects to a DNS or domain name server. The DNS server translates the www.yahoo.com into the computer address 209.131.36.158. On the internet, there are only a few primary or root DNS servers that keep track of these assignments. However, in recent years hackers have been able to exploit these DNS servers and even modify records. For example, if a user types in www.yahoo.com it could redirect to the hackers chosen ip address 32.412.232.94 and display whatever the hacker wants. The page could even look identical to yahoo's but in fact the whole purpose is to steal passwords or install malware.
Thankfully, the IEEE foundation has addressed these vulnerabilities in the root DNS servers and have come up with the new secure DNS server standard. This will effectively prevent hackers from modifying the Root DNS servers addresses. This will also help consumers feel more secure about purchasing online etc.