The Internet could face a blackout on Monday due to Alureon malware

About 245,000 computers throughout the world could face a blackout on Monday thanks to the Alureon malware reports Reuters.  Some have called it the Doomsday Virus after the malicious software was temporarily shut down (and then temporarily reactivated) in the US after a hacking scandal. While it has been noted that the scale of the virus has been over estimated, security firm Deteque noted that about 245,000 computers had been affected around the world and 45,355 computers were stationed in the US.
According to the FBI, the virus was designed to redirect Internet traffic through rogue DNS servers controlled by criminals and since the DNS servers act like the gateway to the Internet, the machines that have been infected will not connect to the Internet once the servers are permanently shut down, if they have not been patched. The temporary servers will shut down at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on Monday.