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I very rarely log into OpenDNS. Last time I logged in, it informed me that it had blocked attempts to visit a spyware domain, but as I have the free version of OpenDNS and the log was too old, I couldn't see what domain was trying to be accessed. Since it hadn't happened in a number of days, I just ignored it, assuming maybe it was one of roommate's friends with their laptop or something.

Now I just logged in and it informed me that 2 attempts to access "www.dell.at" (DO NOT VISIT) were blocked August 9th. Luckily I logged in and saw it today, because the same issue would've happened, had I logged in tomorrow or later. Nobody else has been here with their laptop around that time, and my network is WPA2 secured, so it has to be one of my computers.

OpenDNS: www.dell.at blocked as botnet

Now the question is, what computer has the botnet? My router is set to route all DNS requests through OpenDNS, so that all 7 computers (and 2 iPods and 1 Android phone and 1 Wii and 1 Xbox and 1 Nintendo DS) are protected and use OpenDNS's great DNS system.

My router is running Tomato, though it's a WRT54GL so I can put DD-WRT or another firmware on it if necessary. I would like your help in figuring out which computer has the botnet spyware.

How can I set my router to inform me somehow when a computer attempts to access www.dell.at? Ideally, it would detect an attempt to resolve that domain and would email me or something with the internal IP address. All of my devices are given static DHCP IP addresses, so I would be able to tell just from the internal IP which device it is.

Also, is this a known botnet/spyware that I can scan for? Three my computers are running Linux, and I guess I can assume my small devices don't have spyware (well, maybe - one of the iPods is jailbroken...) but the other four computers are running Windows 7. Only one computer runs antivirus because I haven't had issues and I consider myself a Super User, keeping my things up to date and obviously not opening anything suspicious (and using Google Chrome, and all of the other things that keep me automatically secure). What is the easiest thing to do in this situation, without going to the trouble of installing antivirus? Can anyone recommend a good scanner that just runs once, maybe a "portable" antivirus or a browser based one?

Also, any theories as to why this thing only tried to access the internet a week ago? All of my computers and devices have been on since then so I would think it would have a more recent date than that. Do you think it's possible that all my computers are clean and it was just an embedded resource in a webpage I visited? This seems the most likely story, except that it's happened multiple times (but I wish I could've seen the domain name the first time).

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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Well, not sure which computer is going to www.dell.at but there is nothing wrong with that site and it is a false positive from OpenDNS I think. http://www.dell.at is Dell's Austria site and is ok. Unless the Botnet is doing a DDOS on that site and OpenDNS is trying to protect Dell I am unsure why you are getting any of this. I don't think this is how OpenDNS uses the botnet protection so this can be ignored.

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You're right! I'm not sure why they blocked it. I just visited the site and OpenDNS did not block me this time, so maybe that false positive was just added in that day and later removed. The question still remains of how it got browsed to from my computers, since I certainly don't visit Austrian sites... But oh well! Thanks for pointing it out :) –  Ricket Aug 18 '10 at 23:03
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Install, update, and run scans with MalwareBytes and Spybot. This would be the most straight forward approach.

After that, follow up with a virus scan (if you don't have anti-virus software installed, you need it these days. It's foolish to not have it installed on a Windows machine. AVG and Avast are freebies, so there's no excuse not to install one of them.)

Make sure your Windows Firewall is enabled.

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My excuse to not install a virus scanner is the performance hit they bring. I scan individual files that I'm wary of with virustotal.com but otherwise my habits generally keep me safe. I do use and enjoy the Windows Firewall though! I let Windows Defender do its thing too. –  Ricket Aug 16 '10 at 18:22
Not a smart thing to do not using AV. Look into MSE if you are worried about speed hits, never have an issue with it even on netbooks. –  David Remy Aug 16 '10 at 18:29
If you have relatively modern hardware, you won't notice a speed hit. If you're running older hardware (7-10 years old), Avira is a lighter-weight solution intended for older/slower hardware. Again, a freebie. –  Force Flow Aug 16 '10 at 20:47
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