Virus Hold Computer Files 'Hostage' for $200
dwayner79 sent in a story about a new virus making the rounds- this one is unique because it locks your files and then demands a $200 ransom to get them back. It seems to me that this might leave some sort of tracable money trail. They don't have much information on any particular transmission mechanism, they just talk about web pages giving it up.
Sounds like the first computer virus from what I remember. The one where some repair shop in India had the virus lock the user out of the system. It kindly displayed an ad for the repair shop that said they could fix it though.
These viruses wheren't very contageous though. If you got them it was pretty much your own fault for running that file.
Now, we have selfreplicating viruses that infect lots and lots of computers.
Combine the 2. Lets say it spreads itself for a certain time period (an hour - a day) and then messes things up.
Now we have a problem, that is more than an annoyance.