So that DNS Changer "doomsday" finally hit. The FBI took down the malicious redirect servers and as a consequence any machines still "infected and tied" to those servers would have found their Internet connections disabled.
So let's take stock of what happened on this doomsday.
Nothing. Just as I called it.
All of 211,000 machines were estimated to have been affected. That's less than the population of a major city like Los Angeles (in the millions), much less the population of the United States (hundreds of millions), or the entire population of Internet users around the world (in the billions).
Just like Y2K, the only people affected (of which there were barely) were those who were woefully unprepared, practically to the extent that they'd have to have gone specifically out of their way to remain unprepared. Any basic-level antivirus scan would have found and zapped this malware, and keeping even somewhat up-to-date with your OS patches would have helped as well. Not to mention that any resetting of your computer's DNS settings, either intentional or automatic, should have rerouted away from the malicious servers too.
In order to have remained susceptible to this DNS Changer you had to have not used any antivirus or anti-malware programs, not installed any OS updates, not updated your web browser program ever, and ignored all basic safety etiquette.
That's akin to never getting any vaccines, playing in the local landfill, and then picking your teeth with a rusty knife. You could say that at this point getting infected is just about self warranted.
Considering that modern Windows has built-in safety measures to almost an annoying degree, vulnerable programs like web browsers and even Adobe Flash now auto-update themselves, there's little excuse for falling into so simple a trap. At least compared to the real nasty things that go bump on the Web.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Media hype or actual dodged bullet?