WASHINGTON — Despite repeated alerts, tens of thousands of Americans may lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.
The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.
According to the FBI, the number of computers that are infected is likely more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. There are probably about 64,000 still-infected computers in the U.S.
People whose computers are still infected Monday will lose their ability to go online, and they will have to call their service providers for help deleting the malware and reconnecting to the Internet.
Most victims don’t know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their online surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.
To check whether a computer is infected, users can visit a website run by the group brought in by the FBI: .
The site includes links to respected commercial sites that will run a quick check on the computer, and it also lays out detailed instructions if users want to check the computer themselves.
