Rochester, N.Y. – It looks like just a small number of Internet users have been affected by the malicious software that could have cost them the ability to go online as of midnight last night.
The malware took over computers around the world more than a year ago -- but for the past eight months, the FBI has been running Internet servers as a temporary safety net to keep the infected computers online. Those servers were shut down last night.
FBI officials have been tracking the number of computers they believe may still be infected. As of last night, there were about 41,800 in the U.S., down from 45,600 on July 4.
As the deadline approached, Internet service providers like AT&T and Time Warner Cable set up their own safety nets to allow the affected computers to keep accessing the Internet.
AT&T says just a "small percentage" of its customers were affected.
If your computer is infected, you’ll know right away.
“You will get a big screen that says you’re infected,” Saunders College at RIT professor Nick Francesco says. “It’s red and it says how to fix it and where to go to fix it.”
Step-by-step directions on how to fix the virus can be found
here.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
