DHS pinpoints government computers set to lose Internet access

The Obama Administration employed a new government-wide network surveillance tool and private sector assistance to search for corrupted agency computers that are at risk of going offline in less than two weeks, Homeland Security Department officials said.

The DNSChanger virus had infected half of the government's major agencies as of early 2012, security firm Internet Identity reported on Feb. 2. Researchers there found 27 of 55 government departments had at least one corrupted computer or router. DNSChanger, which federal agents started eradicating last year, worked by commanding compromised machines in a botnet to communicate with rogue servers that redirected the victims to fraudulent websites.