By now you may have seen or read one of the many news reports claiming that the malware, DNSChanger, will render your computer inoperable on July 9, 2012. While that is a true statement for approximately 64,000 US computers*, the vast majority of us are not affected. To check to see if your computer is affected, visit www.dns-ok.us. Due to widespread news reports of the malware, you may experience issues accessing this website. A lot of people are checking. If you experience any issues, try accessing the website again. DNSChanger was a malware attack from 2007. This exploit changed your computer's domain name service (DNS) to a malicious server that distributed advertisements in web browsers and attempted to intercept sensitive personal information. Last November, the FBI found the criminals responsible for the malware and shut the malicious portions of the service down. Since the malware had infected a little over a half a million computers worldwide, the FBI kept the DNS server active to prevent affected computers from losing Internet access. On July 9, 2012, those DNS servers will be shut down. To fix the issue, the computer user should use the DNS servers of their Internet Service Provider (which is the default setting on most every Internet-connected device). For more information, visit www.dcwg.org or contact a computer repair specialist. What is DNS? DNS is an Internet service that converts user-friendly domain names, such as www.fbi.gov, into numerical addresses that allow computers to talk to each other. Without DNS and the DNS servers operated by Internet Service Providers, we wouldn't be able to browse websites, send email or connect to any Internet services. *According to The Huffington Post.