WASHINGTON—The malware threat to the Internet likely has been tamed. 
 
 Leading Internet-service providers said Sunday that they had moved to ensure that computers infected with malware left behind by a hacking spree that started in 2007 continue to access the Internet normally. On Monday, there were few signs that many Americans had lost their Web access. 
 
 WSJ's Daniel Lippman reports leading Internet-service providers said Sunday that they had moved to ensure that computers infected with malware left behind by a hacking spree that started in 2007 continue to access the Internet normally. AP photo. 
 
 Since November the Federal Bureau of Investigation has authorized the operation of servers to allow infected computers to run normally, but those servers went offline at midnight. 
 
 Comcast Corp. has reached out to customers with infected machines. Verizon Communications Inc. is connecting customers who lost connectivity to the Internet with technicians who can remove the malware. And AT&T Inc. said it has taken steps to make sure none of its customers lose their Internet connections. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close DCWG/Associated Press A Web page used to diagnose whether a malware problem exists. 
 
 Officials from the companies played down the threat, and some cybersecurity experts said computer antivirus programs and updated operating systems have cleaned most infected computers. The FBI had estimated that 64,000 computers were affected. 
 
 Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and partner at the law firm Steptoe & Johnson, said Monday there had been too much hype around the malware threat, which never posed much of a problem. 
 
 "The notion that somehow there was going to be an Internet Armageddon today was always overdone," he said. "It was a pretty small number of machines that hadn't been taken care of by their owners that were going to be shut off. They were unlikely to be central to any institution's functioning." 
 
 But Tom Kellermann, vice president of cybersecurity at Trend Micro, an Internet-security firm, warned that service providers won't be able to help all of their users. "This is a real thing," he said. 
 
 The malware, which cybersecurity experts said had once infected millions of computers, was created by a group of hackers to route computers attempting to visit legitimate websites to look-a-like alternatives. Last year, the FBI's "Operation Ghost Click" shut down the ring and indicted six Estonians and one Russian for their involvement in the malware scam. 
 
 The malware, however, remained on computers. The FBI obtained a court order that allowed the Internet Systems Consortium, a nonprofit group that supports parts of the Internet's infrastructure, to maintain "clean" servers. But those servers stopped running at 12:01 a.m. EDT Monday, leaving it to Internet-service providers to help users scrub the malware from their computers. 
 
 The Estonian group's manipulation of Internet addresses was a particularly clever and insidious way to hijack computers, cybersecurity experts say. 
 
 "Domain-name translation is considered part of the network infrastructure, and so it is interesting that the infrastructure itself is now being targeted," said Sami Saydjari of Cyber Defense Agency, a security consulting firm. "We can expect to see more of this in the future." 
 
 A malicious malware bug will kick thousands of computers off the Internet come Monday. Scott Austin discusses what to look for on digits. Photo: Getty Images. 
 
 Mr. Kellermann said the Estonian group represented a new kind of dangerous hacker. "They provide hacking as a service to the highest bidder," he said. "They are mercenaries for hire." 
 
 Other experts said the next attack on the domain-name system by a similar criminal group could be worse. "We should treat this as a bit of an exhibition game," said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. "We had time in this case. Steps were taken, which we won't necessarily have in a no-notice kind of attack in the future." 
 
 Internet-service providers emphasized that they believe only a small number of computers in the U.S. remain infected. Comcast has called and emailed customers that the company believes have infected computers, said Charlie Douglas, a company spokesman. Referring to customers affected by the issue, he said: "The call volume is truly minuscule this morning." 
 
 Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T, said the company is redirecting infected computers to the proper websites. "We will operate legitimate domain-name servers through the end of the year, and that will give the very, very small number of customers whose computers may be affected time to remove it from their computer and avoid any service interruption," he said. "They will not be cut off." 
 
 Time Warner Cable also set up servers to ensure customers could stay online and also notified them to remove the malware from their computers, said Justin Venech, a spokesman for the company. 
 
 Harry Mitchell, a Verizon spokesman, said the company is giving affected customers step-by-step instructions on how to rid their computers of the malware, or linking them with contractors who can offer professional assistance to clean the infected machines. 
 
 Since the ring was indicted, the FBI has offered a website for consumers to check whether their computers were infected. Some voices on the Internet have warned of an FBI conspiracy. But Internet-security experts said there was little likelihood that the FBI was using the servers it had maintained after busting the crime ring to track Internet usage; they also said there was little possibility that the FBI was using its antimalware site for other than its stated purpose. 
 
 "That would be incredibly stupid and easily detectable by the technical community," said Cyber Defense Agency's Mr. Saydjari. 
 
 —Shira Ovide contributed to this article. 
 
 Write to Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com and Daniel Lippman at daniel.lippman@dowjones.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared July 9, 2012, on page B3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Malware Threat to Internet Corralled. ||||| Hi! 
 
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– With about 64,000 computers in the United States in danger of getting cut off from the Internet at midnight last night once the FBI shut down two servers connected to the DNSChanger virus, the dawning of a new day is set to bring ... well, precious little, reports the Wall Street Journal. Top Internet service providers said they had already made moves to ensure their customers did not lose their Web connection (AT&T went so far as to say it had worked to make sure none would), and just in case they all had extra tech support on hand to help those who needed it. And Threatpost points out that virus, which once infected 4 million computers worldwide, was down to 300,000 by yesterday, giving it a cleanup rate of more than 92%. "So why all the fuss? asks Paul Roberts. Blame the media, for one. Though they "often steer away from technically complicated technology and security stories," they can't resist a good deadline story, he writes. "The ticking time bomb meme is really too much to resist." But perhaps this Techcrunch article is the most succinct and accurate on the subject (we're assuming it's about DNSChanger, anyway).