A PR campaign is underway to clean up as many as 300,000 computers infected with DNSChanger viruses that divert victims' traffic to sites that can further exploit the machines and their owners, but it's not clear that goal can be accomplished without drastic measures.
If a machine is infected with DNSChanger, that infection is often accompanied by a rootkit that is very difficult to remove, says Jose Nazario, senior manager of security research at Arbor Networks.
"The safest thing is to nuke the box and reinstall," Nazario says, meaning that the hard drive should be wiped and the operating system and applications reloaded. "Remediation is one of the toughest challenges we face."
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Nuke the Box: Push Underway to Clean up 300,000 PCs With DNS Virus | PCWorld Business Center