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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.
...Until I see a photograph of my files with today's paper.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Virus writers need to eat too!
-r
before the perpotrators find out that to get get, you follow the money!
IF it takes spyware hostage
Assuming this virus is telling the truth (and I highly highly highly doubt it is), doesn't that mean that there's a simple command you can send to it to fix the problem? What's to prevent anti-virus companies from figuring this out and providing a quick fix?
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
What the hell took so long for this to happen? There are thousands of viruses all around and most of them are so benign. They just eat system resources, send spam, show ads and other bs. It took way too long for someone to make a virus that actually compromises data. I hope soon someone makes one that takes important data files and uploads them to a web server for public view. And another one that overwrites the hard drives 3 or 4 times to prevent data recovery.
Maybe when this happens people will actually pay more attention to computer security, instead of just putting up with the inconvenience.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
However, people have been installing and paying spyware removal fees of less than $200, so I won't be surprised when people pay off viruses like this.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
If it were real, we would have heard it from Symantec or McAffee long before a third-world news website.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
you could trace the email address to somewhere in either the former Eastern Bloc or Nigeria
another Roadkill on the Information Superhighway
Would the Lindberg Law apply to kidnapped files as well?
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
Do they accept PayPal?
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
yet another reason to do regular backups, so you are never solely dependent on your local copies.
to "Follow the Money"!
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
...
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH GNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It appears to have infected CmdrTaco and now the news is being held hostage!!!!!!!!??!?!?!!!!
1) Infect news site and hold "stories" hostage
2) Hold a slashpoll to see if anyone noticed
3)
4) PROFIT!
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
so I figure the virus author could deduct the money from my account, himself.
they are just gonna lock our mp3s and then charge us the "fair market amount". $200 per song doesn't seem to be all that much for them, however....
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
because his "blackmail-letter" is a file called attention!!!.txt, containing this:
Some files are coded.
To buy decoder mail: n781567@yahoo.com
with subject: PGPcoder 000000000032
Sounds like the first computer virus from what I remember. The one where some repair shop in India had the virus lock the user out of the system. It kindly displayed an ad for the repair shop that said they could fix it though.
There's no way for a programmer to collect a ransom for files. How's he going to collect the money, a paypal account? Please! The feds will be all over this guy in a matter of minutes.
What happened?
Did they Install windows?
was the email address bgates@microsoft.com?
tee-hee
G
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
I had a virus like that once, it was called M$.W!nd0ws.ME. It was horrible, once it infected your computer, it would display this wretched blue screen filled with hieroglyphics and demanded that you hit some arcane character sequence.
This one was a little different than the virus talked about in the story. You had to already drop $99 bucks for it and then it STILL crashed your PC.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
All this guy did was probably change the file attributes and or permissions. It's been my experience that most "Windows" computer users have no clue how to change them or answer "permissions? attributes? what are these terms you speak of?"
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Next time the police captures a virus writer, they should put him in a cell and tell him, we'll leave you here unless another virus writer pays us 200$.
All this guy has to do is to collect enough money before anti-virus people figure out the fix, or someone figures out how to trace it. All of a sudden, he has his laywer fees paid for. Its like the Microsoft thing all over again.
SOmeone wrote: "this one is unique because it locks your files and then demands a $200 ransom to get them back." Unique? sounds like a description of anti-virus software to me.
you could just spend the change on a blank cd and back up your data before spending 200 dollars to get it back.
In the bad old days virii did all that and more... apart from maybe uploading your stuff to public sites.
I remeber a long way back getting a virus that deleted every .exe file outside of C:\windows. It meant that windows was still fine but there were no applications to do anything. Then again I still had Freecell and Minesweeper so it wasn't all bad
another Roadkill on the Information Superhighway
Is it just me, or does this seem a little elementary? FTA:
"I send program to your email," the hacker wrote.
And only demanding $200.00 from a business? Sounds like one of the following must be true:
a) person is stupid enough to demand only $200.00 for a crime most likely punishable as extortion.
b) person is testing the effectiveness of their program.
c) person is too short sighted to think of either a or b.
This is just pathetic.
Of course, this means any honest white knight is going to learn the hard way about 20 feds and a flashlight.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
Not that I particularly apprecaite idiot crackers making my work harder, but you gotta figure they'll be cringing at this rather blunt and clumsy attempt at extortion{sp}.
I mean, is it really that much harder to make a virus that silently installs itself and listens for key strokes, then sends those back to you through a few cracked proxies? And there you go: account numbers and passwords.
Idiots. If they do try to collect on this, they'll be caught, we'll find it's a couple of dumb as fuck kids who thought it'd be cool to "have a couple hundred bucks".
And while I'm on that, 200 bucks? If you are really trying to get money, why not charge 20 bucks? For 200 bucks, most people are likely to seek outside help. For 20 bucks, people are more likely to just fork it over. I'd bet you'd have a greater ROI with the lower charge.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Gee, I wonder how he figured that out....
that Microsoft is adding to the next version of Office?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Hmmm, is Microsoft testing their Longhorn upgrade incentive plan? Send in your money and get your license key, we've already downloaded and installed it for you. :-)
Excuse me - I have to go take out a kidnapping & ransom insurance policy on my Word files and Email folder. By the way, when I heard this story on the radio this morning, they said it was hackers, not a virus, which sounds more plausible. (Well, marginally.)
Also, does anyone think that $200 seems a little cheap? Even a small company would probably value its data at 25x this.
Tristan Yates
Gee....wonder what operating system and security these corperations had in place. If we cannot know the businesses that paid the extortion, can we know why they were so insecure.
It's odd that Websense are breaking this news, since Websense is basically a filtering service, rather than a trojan or antivirus company. They're good at what they do, but they're not good at what they don't do. They have teams of people spread around the planet checking and categorizing URLs. Companies like HP and others then use the Websense service to filter net access according to certain rules. But I don't see why any company would turn to Websense to help with this particular problem, and I don't know why Websense would then go public with it, since I don't think they'd be the people to help fix it anyway.
This has been out for years, it's called Windows XP Activation.
The Technomancer
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-
This happened to me so I called Mel Gibson because he has a proven history of resolving these demands without paying the ransom. Worked out great in the end, my files were freed without me paying the $200 ransom. I did have to pay Mel $10 million for his time though which was a bit of a bummer.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
this is probably just an experiment, to see how many people are willing to pay this ammount to get the files back
He (she?) would get more money if it was a lower ammount in an easy-to-pay system, since many more people would pay.
Maybe we will see the story sometime soon
By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind.
virus that replaces all .jpg files found with goatse, tubgirl and lemonparty.
Thanks for giving 'em the idea. Next time I go to look at pr0.. I mean my pictures, I'm going to be in fear of opening any of them.. *grumble*
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
well maybe its not done for finanical gain, but what if they reply to the email with someone they dont like's bank account details? in hopes of getting them traced. or give the bank details of a charity and see what happens
www.TECHNETIUM.net.au
---
Websense alert
It is particularily interesting to note that this is a browser vulnerability exploit rather than an actual virus.
---
Symantec description of the Trojan Horse encoder
A google search for PGPcoder will turn up lots more.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
When Micrsoft does this, it's called a business practice.
I just finished reading "Malicious Cryptography: Exposing Cryptovirology", and it talks greatly about exactly this. The problem is that, due to wonderful things like public-key encryption, evildoers could conduct an attack like this without leaving a trace.
I'd highly recommend the book (no, I don't know that author).
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
What the programmer needs to do is to buy a speed boat and have the victim drop the bag from a bridge into the boat and then flee and stage his own death with an explosion.
I've seen it in the movies.
The trick is to do that without spending more than $200.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Here is some more reading on this extortion attack: http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/alerts/alert.p hp?AlertID=194
the virus was like that guy from the first Austin Powers
Victim: Who are you working for!
Virus: Unable to comply
Victim: Who Are You Workin For!
Virus: Negative!
Victim: Who Are You Workin For DAmmit!
Virus: *beplbeplpeeaezapakzz Triple Kill Detected* Fox News.
If you dont send the money with in two weeks they start sending the files back, bit by bit.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
I've written about this before, but I'm *so* waiting for a virus to do one or more of the following:
* alter scheduled appointments in outlook/exchange
* alter contact information in outlook/exchange
* alter information in ms word and ms excel documents
The key to all this is to do it in small doses - change a 3 to a 4, alter appointments by 1 hour, etc, introduce a few wrong spellings into ms word documents, etc.
People have this view that viruses are horribly destructive, and it decreases the estimation of Windows in some. Others stick by Windows, content to use anti-virus stuff because a virus just generally uses up resources indiscriminately or 'steals' data.
If viruses started attacking the integrity of core MS Office products, not 'just' the operating system itself, more damage would be done to MS' hold on corporate america than any attack on the 'operating system' level by viruses.
Put more simply, most people really don't understand the ins and outs of operating systems, nor the potential damage than can be done to them. Everyone can understand the damage that could be done by having your spreadsheets altered without your knowledge.
Well, at least I *think* everyone could understand that.
creation science book
This is what happened when I installed windows 98... it crashed and a dialog box appeared and demanded that I upgrade to windows XP in order to save my files from digital heaven.
Windows XP Pro.
I would have thought the author would have asked for...
One Miiiiilion dollars!
Buah hah hah hah hah!
[Mel Gibson]
I won't pay for my files. Instead, I'm offering $200 for your msn you stupid kiddie, I'm gonna h4Xxx0r u n00b!!!
[/Mel Gibson]
http://stoploudness.org/
Plain and simple, this should be used as a prime reason to outlaw all encryption, excpet by authorized government agencies. Oh, and big corporations for protection of IP. Everyday citizens have no reason for encryption.
;-)
Outlaw it NOW! The SKY is FALLING! Think of the YOUNGLINGS! (he he, sorry, I couldn't resist)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
No!!!! Not my 200GB archive of pr0n!! :(
That'll that forever to redownload and organize...
Where do I send the money?
What happens if after I pay the money, my files do not want to come back ?
Good info. I wish I found that before I posted. (I *did* RTFA.)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I lost my third year project (Physics) to one in 1992. Eight months work chewed to bits, but a very nice chap named Jules reconstructed most of it from the actual sectors, with me guessing where-abouts it came from.
Those were, emphatically, NOT the days.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
You mean when you call 911 you don't get put on hold for 20 minutes?
Fight Spammers!
a chosen plaintext attack might be an interesting defense. you could keep a series of chosen files with different extentions on your computer, so that when you get hit you have them for the decryption effort. Also you should wrap your monitor in tinfoil. ;)
What will these virus creators think of next? Virus: "$200 for your files, $500 for your mouse!" ...and later...
Doctor: "I don't think he is going to make it; this virus is holding his heart hostage and is demanding $500!"
Just imagine if these crackers put their "skills" to something worthwhile!
And yes, 'tries', as the bit I just quoted, is one of the worst scenes out of the movie.
It's about time we had a change of pace. I for one am getting bored with the sends-emails-to-contacts-in-your-address-book variety of viruses. Whatever happened to the viruses of old (that I've only read about!) where every 4th of July your monitor would light up in a fireworks display?
Ah...memories...
Is to back up your data on a regular basis.
This little bit of wisdom has been around since computers hit the home. Now if only people would follow the advice given to them this virus would be a complete non-issue. Instead, we have a bunch of users who are convinced nothing bad will happen to them, (or are completely oblivious to the dangers), complaining since they didn't do what someone told them it was important to do.
I know I am paranoid, but I make sure important files are regularly copied to 3 different systems. Gmail makes a great place to store some of data - lots of space, geographically separated and administered by people who aren't complete idiots. I also copy my important stuff every week or two and put the disk in a fireproof safe designed for computer media.
This scheme seems to work well against these sorts of viruses as well as natural disasters and harware failures.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
I'm curious to see if booting with Knoppix and backing up your files will thwart this "virus." If he has used any form of encryption, this would not work. But if he changed the file permissions in Windows, as mentioned in an earlier post, it's a possibility
The encrypt-files-and-demand-ransom-trick has been tried before by criminals in 1989. A company sent out disks with software containing a trojan that encrypted the harddisk and then demanded money to decrypt it.
y -of-computer-viruses.html#C05
http://www.claws-and-paws.com/virus/papers/histor
Now imagine Mel Gibson actually saying that ;)
back in the 80's there was a program called HIV information that was sent on floppy to a bunch of people in the medical community. In the lisence of the software there was a warning that if they didn't pay for it there would be repurcussions. On something like the 30th usage of the program it would encrypt all the files on the hard drive and demand a ransom to unencrypt them.
The ransomware could phone home to a cracked server which provides the key. Or public key crypto could be used.
I forget what 8 was for.
Oh yeah. Fuck those gender-descriminating Jedi.
Anakin: "Padme, you're pregnant. I'm afraid-for the good of the baby-you can't go lightsaber dueling or starfigher riding. You can resume such activities when they are safe for you again, mmkay?"
Padme: "Okay. I don't want to lose my child, so I'll sit down for this particular strech of 9 months. It's not like I wasn't involved in lots of gunfights before this, so I think I can deal."
God, some people just try too hard. Your stupid little digression about "sie" and "hir" is almost longer than your entire point.
back in the msdos days (aka: the good old days) there was a virus that locked your pc, did something nasty to your mbr (or fat - i forgot) and you had to play a game (or two .. or usually aLOT) on the slots machine. You would get your system back when you got the jackpot.
How do we sleep when our beds are burning?
Asbestos pyjamas, you fool!
Do I have to think of everything?
In this case, I think they as an indeterminate singular is a pretty good evolution of the language. Not perfect, but pretty good. I already use it this way in some of my writings. Whether it is being used in the singular or plural sense is usually clear on context. It also has the benefit that in situations such as here, where it is not known whether one or more people are involved, then both conditions are covered.
For myself, I used to use "te" for an indeterminate pronoun in personal writings. T is close to the s in she, and te is two letters like he. Not sure why I chose it, just did. Unfortunately, it is a homonym with the tee/tea family, so not perfect either.
Not that it shows much clairvoyance on his behalf, as others has posted before, this was begging to be done.
The revolution will not be televised.
Combining a computer virus and extortion. When they catch this bozo, and they WILL catch him, they will probably charge him with 1 count of extortion for every system in the world that was infected. For the first time in human history, someone will have a jail sentence that extends past the expected end of the universe!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The author's name is 14608decf3c24b62a64015d411a862a640e5c1.
Course, you'll have to read the book to figure out how to decode it.
I'm sorry, but we don't negotiate with terrorists. The files knew the danger when they took the job.
C:\>format c:
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
1) Those who have lost data
2) Those who will loose data
An appropriate backup system would render this extortion powerless, albeit inconvenient for most home users.
Will Microsoft start factoring these little occurances into the TCO of Windows?!
So, the water's already muddy on that one.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Wow - it's like "Hackers"... only ten years after the idea even made the mainstream. And much more low-rent. And without the cool graphics and computer-generated voice. And with less supertankers. And without Angelina Jolie with her nips out.
How lame is that?
(And that's leaving aside the huge number of social and technical ways this scam could be improved...)
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
... since ILOVEYOU.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I don't know if this is a hoax. Even if it isn't, I silently wish for someone to up and do this.
Most viruses just run in the background, sucking up processes so that the computer runs slow, making most users hit the monitor and complain about whatever ISP they use (regardless if they are currently connected or not,) while not always actually calling them for help.
If it wasn't for programs like Norton, McAfee, or AVG, most average users probably wouldn't have a clue if they did get a virus.
With something like this working 'in your face', they'll at least go 'wtf', and maybe listen this time when you tell them not to open attachments they weren't expecting.
Better yet, don't ask for money. Just punish the saps. As a kid, both spankings and time-outs helped deter me from doing bad things or disobeying (more the spankings than the time-outs.) Let's put this into the adult realm: Have a virus that, when run, sends itself to everyone in the address book. When that's done, it brings up a message telling the user what an idiot s/he is, and that the computer is now locked for the next month. Effectively, they get a 'time-out' for doing something bad/stupid, and will probably (hopefully) think twice before opening an unknown attachment next time.
Um... I don't condone doing this, though!
This is not a new idea, just a twist to attempt to make a profit. I recall the idea being implemented in an old school DOS virus back in the late 80's / early 90's (can't remember the name).
The old virus wrote the FAT table to memory and then deleted any copies from the disk. It then gave the user three choices, like a shell game. If the correct choice was made (there was only one), the virus would write the FAT back to disk and then remove itself. If the wrong choice was made, the virus rebooted the PC, thus making it extremely difficult to get your files back in one piece.
I always liked that one.
I thought Palladium wasn't comming out until the next version of Windows?!?!
Why should I believe that thing? Does any other security site has it from a "reliable" source? Until then, it is vaporware... (or should I say hear say, gossip, etc).
"Give me back my files!"
As for tracing the e-mail well that wont work either: again people do this all the time on e-bay rip offs and none of those get traced.
besides which the attacker might very well be logging your keystrokes and simply watching for you to send any text continaing a fake address he gave you, then sending this real text somewhere else. Fat chance you would notice this in time to do anything about it. He just picks off the western union number, then pays some street urchin to go collect for him.
or you could rig this as sort of a two part thing. One is to have the virus encrypt the files. then "coincidentally" this spam e-mail comes offer to sell you a universal decoder program for the low price of 49.99$. THe company could be legitimate in the same sense that McAffee is legit. They just sell decryption tools. Sure they might be suspect but some company IS going to crack this and when they do they are going to SELL the decoder. The evil-doer merely has to be one of many companies offer this product for sale. It would be in his interest to leak the decoding method just so those decoy compamies would appear.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How can you say a virus that wiped your OS clean off your computer was a bad thing? If a virus did that to my parents computer I could probably convince them to move to Linux. No, viruses today slow the system, inundate the user with ads and send spam to the point that the OS is unbearable to use to anyone who has ever used a Mac or Linux, but so they say "it's ok, it works for me".
If you have just two files its still extremely hard... you need something like 2^23 files to do it in a reasonable amount of time (assuming RSA+IDEA).
This post is incorrect. Probably a semi-subtle troll rather than an honest error.
Neither RSA nor IDEA is vulnerable to a known-plaintext attack. In fact, any cipher that is vulnerable to such an attack is considered completely insecure, especially if only 2^23 "files" are needed.
If you get to choose the contents of one of the files its only about 2^17.
Neither RSA nor IDEA is vulnerable to a chosen-plaintext attack. There were some chosen-plaintext attacks against RSA a few years back (mid 90s), but proper padding eliminates them. And far more than 2^17 trials were required for typical key sizes. Again, no cipher that was vulnerable to such an attack would be considered secure.
Obviosly, if the keys are larger, it will take exponentially longer.
Larger than what? Are you assuming extremely small key sizes in order to achieve the numbers above? Actually, you don't get to pick the size of an IDEA key, because IDEA keys are 128 bits. Though you can arbitrarily fix key bits to produce a smaller effective key, there's no reason why the virus writer would want to do that.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Oh, wait a minute, never mind...
I forgot we were talking about viruses.
If this gets into a control system at a chemical plant the writers of this virus will be at Gitmo until rapture.
I can see it now:
"What do you mean MCP? I have a Frigging MCSE you bastard! I paid a lot of money for those test prep courses."
The damage that can be done in financial circles is astounding. There are a lot of people with more letters before and after their name than IN their name.
And changing a few Ms. to Mrs. or Miss. will cause a whole other slew of issues.
If the first name is androgynous (Like Terry) changing the Mr to Ms or vise versa would also be rather evil.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Twoeasy steps:
(1) Get this virus into the DMCA-supporters computers.
(2) When they are screaming that all their data is encrypted, kindly inform them that you could create a crack for it and get all their data back, but unfortunately you would run afoul of the DMCA reverse-engineering laws and therefore cannot help them.
Yes. Irony is *NOT* dead!!
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Some kind soul should write a virus that holds your files hostage until Firefox is installed and is set as the default browser. Hint, hint...
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Not that I'm advocating the use of "they" in the singular form, but your argument would seem to suggest that "you" is only valid in the plural form as well. Or, do you say "you is cool" when referring to a single person?
[humor]Some people do believe that "you" can also have a plural meaning, but us cultured types know that the plural of "you" is "y'all".[/humor].
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I encountered a virus just 2 years ago, although it had been written in the 1990s, that encrypted files on a hard drive using a randomly generated and locally stored key. If you removed the virus, you'd lose the key, and access to all files that had so far been encrypted. I don't recall the name of the virus right now, but I spent about an hour looking for a fix to this old virus, and fortunately found an old removal utility on a website that was still hosting it, and it retrieved the simple encryption key, and removed the virus after decrypting all of the encrypted files.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
All I need is the names and addresses... and a plane ticket... and a rental car. Give me that, and I'll make them recant their evil ways. This goes for Spyware authors and Spammers. And the guy that cancelled Firefly.
MadOgre.com
Since they recovered the files without the key, it looks like the guy wrote his own crypto.
Doesn't this violate the DMCA?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
All hackers and virus makers are subject to summary execution. i would send this person the two hundred dollars and use the records to track him down and then i would use a baseball bat to perform anal rape on him his famaly and any freinds that he has, after wich i would execute him, then i would sell the video on the internet to recoup the 200$ and mabe even make a profit.
I wonder if this (or some other) extortion attempt is why my bank recently sent it's customers a warning about a new scam that asks you if you would be willing to become a "money agent" for someone in another country. Supposedly, you would allow money to be deposited in your account and then you would send 90% of it along to a Western Union account. According to the scam, this is supposed to be faster, safer, and cheaper for people in forigen countries.
Seems like a great way of breaking the money trail and it only costs 10%!
Crooks are pretty inventive.
tar -xv backup.from.preinfection.tar
done.
backup.restores must not be popular in third world countries.
It seems that virus writers have gotten even lower-simply destroying your work wasn't enough, now they hold it ramsom. I hope that they follow the money trail to this scum, and hit him with not only computer crime charges, but extortion charges.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
How long until McAfee becomes self aware! ...And becomes skynet.
So if you find a crack to the encryption.. are you violation of the DMCA? :(
And every time I've heard it, it's been from a northerner - i.e., not a recognized practioner of the word "y'all". For some bizarre reason, successful usage of this excellent word requires living south of the Mason-Dixon line (btw, this includes, but is not limited to, Australia - they also use this word). Although Southerners generally do like to take their time in talking (I am an exception to this rule, although I'm only a Southerner by exposure and not by birth), they do not make their sentences unnecessarily long. Thus, "all y'all" is a phrase that has been invented by northerners in an attempt to impugn the good repuation of the word "y'all".
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If this virus ever holds your files hostage, remember that the DMCA makes it illegal to try to circumvent the protection scheme. Don't break the law, it's bad 'mkay!
"there will be little impetus to apprehend these worthless criminals."
Seems to me,such criminals will be WORTH every penny they collect, heheheh.
What MIGHT be worth LESS is the amount of effort and resources it takes to get the money back.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Hmmm... Film out in 1995... Ms Jolie born in 1975... I make that 20, so not underage, no.
Now, whether she looked underage... that's an entirely different matter <grin>
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
This makes two people to say this, and I have NEVER heard any one actually use this in speaking (and I have lived in the south for 30+ years now - more than 20 of those years in Georgia, and the remainder in Virginia). I strongly suspect this is a conspiracy that northerners are engaging in to impugn the good reputation of the excellent word "y'all"!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
From what I understand, the virus is reversable.
I always assume reporters are at fault for what's in a story. Once a local TV reporter interviewed my wife for probably half an hour, and managed to use three whole words of it on the air.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I'll send him the $200. It's a cashier's check, drawn on the First Bank of Nigeria.
No, better yet, I'll make the check for $10,000 and he can just wire back the difference. Much simpler that way.
Rather than try to extort $20 million from Citibank, now we're reduced to extorting $200.
What's next - a virus that says, "Brother, can you spare a dime?"
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
and that's where I heard it before - from a transplanted northerner!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
That depends on what you mean by RSA and IDEA. The security of cryptosystems is highly dependent on implementation details; for instance, without use of OAEP, RSA is vulnerable to all manner of different attacks.
Any cipher run in ECB mode is vulnerable to a degenerate known-plaintext attack. If you know what a certain block of text is, and you see how that's been encrypted by a cipher in ECB mode, then you can be guaranteed that later on when you see that same pattern it'll decrypt to the same value. This is why ECB mode is held in such disrepute nowadays.
Etcetera. Basically, there are all kinds of different qualifiers which need to be put on any crypto answer. I don't think the original poster was correct, but I think it gives a false sense of security to say "neither RSA nor IDEA is vulnerable to a known-plaintext attack" without giving a lot of qualifiers on precisely how those algorithms are being implemented.
eom
Gosh, if only there were a way to make copies, somehow, of valuable files. You could use those while waiting for your precious originals to be restored to you. Wait, back up, there is no way.
An Amiga virus which name I don't remember did me approximatelly this, to a floppy, like 15 years ago. The virus showed a message telling me to send the floppy to some postcard service. Although I never sent it (it was a backup of some game I owned), I guess that guy didn't have to buy his floppies anymore :-D.
Here's what I don't get:
1. Viruses spread through a limited (though large) number of known vectors, primarily on unpatched or otherwise-insecure systems.
2. People who get viruses at one point generally end up getting a lot of them over time, because people generally don't learn from their mistakes for some reason.
In other words, it seems to be the same holes over and over and over again that get exploited. OK, I see two approaches to this that would do a better job of fixing the problem than running anti-virals. Both involve creating a virus to exploit the holes, whose payload is a security package.
One would have a security package that's a simple virus detector, that pops up a message to the user stating that virii have been found, and naming them. Another could actually attempt to clean the machine. That's a little intrusive, and it would be even more intrusive to, say, turn off the machine a day later if it's not disinfected, or to try to patch the holes in the machine, so I don't suggest that those be tried.
But the basic idea, of putting an anti-virus payload on a virus, seems straightforward enough that, since it hasn't been done so far as I know, I must be missing something.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I really find appalling this way of thinking.
I won't comment on the "data of people using Windows should be CORRUPTED, that will teach them !" argument. I don't think there is a need to.
However, I'd just like to ask you something: What are the most common ways for virus to spread nowadays ? Usually, they are:
- holes in mail readers
- trojans delivered by mail ("click on the nice picture")
- trojans on the internet ("play this nice game"!)
Of course, there are famous virus that spread trough holes in Windows, but they are less common than the brood I've previously cited.
Now tell me one thing: why using linux should reduce the risks of having holes in your mail reader ?
And more importantly, why using linux should prevent your documents from being corrupted by some kind of trojan ? Don't forget that most of the important data on a personal computer is user writable.
quote > end quote
The problem is that such viruses don't propagate as well to reinfect, having killed the PC. A parallel example involving life, is Ebola and Marburg viruses in Africa. Because their letality is ~70-90% (turning a body into a bucket of unmoving haemorrhagic fluid in just over a week), a localized tribe or a village ends up dead before passing it on for spreading around. OTOH, benigh (often East Asian) cold and flue viruses kill a miserable percentage of old and weak, allowing the majority to still be able to travel or socialize long enough to allow the flue to propagate around the world.
Except the encryption isn't a "protection mechanism" used by the copyright holder, the one who wrote the documents or their employer.
How about "send nasty messages to your boss" (or your co-workers, clients, etc). You could do it randomly over time to different people... parse an email that exists, send a message as a reply (with the original body quoted) stating "well I think you're an a**hole and I have no f**king use for you"...
A little more legit-sounding than your standard spoofed email, and more dangerous.
for the obligatory pr0n comments... Are you loosing your touch?
Basically, there are all kinds of different qualifiers which need to be put on any crypto answer. I don't think the original poster was correct, but I think it gives a false sense of security to say "neither RSA nor IDEA is vulnerable to a known-plaintext attack" without giving a lot of qualifiers on precisely how those algorithms are being implemented.
You're confusing ciphers and cryptosystems.
It's perfectly correct to talk about the security of a cipher with respect to a particular attack -- the implicit assumption cryptographers make is that the cipher is being used correctly and the attack is being executed competently.
When discussing the security of a cryptosystem that uses a given cipher you do have to look at the implementation details. Exponent choice, padding, feedback modes, message integrity, key storage, key management, keystream quality, key sizes, key generation, subliminal channels, side channels, order of encryption and signing, reuse of keys... the list goes on and on of things that have to be considered.
But the AC troll I responded to wasn't claiming that poor design or implementation would make the virus's crypto vulnerable to known or chosen-plaintext attacks, he (or she) was making a blanket statement that one would assume would apply to any system using those ciphers. And that blanket statement is clearly false, even if specific implementation failures might make it true in some cases.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Just overwrite the file with random info. Get money leave. Maybe call virus to trash the computer completely when done. If you are into extortion, you have no morals. If you have no morals, you won't keep up your end of the deal.
Speaking as a grad student in cryptography, I don't make the same implicit assumption that you do; nor does my advisor. Whether we like it or not, people use the term "RSA" or "IDEA" or whatever to cover both the algorithm, the protocol, and the implementation of both.
The RSA algorithm is vulnerable to many attacks.
The RSA protocol (what I'd prefer people called PKCS-1) is designed to minimize these vulnerabilities.
And RSA implementations run the gamut from good to lousy.
It would be a nice world if we could always understand precisely what people meant by "RSA", or insert-your-cipher here. We don't, and for that reason it pays to be very careful with language.
It would be a nice world if we could always understand precisely what people meant by "RSA", or insert-your-cipher here. We don't, and for that reason it pays to be very careful with language.
I agree with this in the abstract, but as an expert speaking to non-experts it's usually a good idea to simplify things. Speaking with excessive accuracy can actually mislead if you're not careful. It's easy to mislead by oversimpifying, too, of course.
With respect to RSA and it's common usages, the best practices are so thoroughly well established (embodied in large part in the PKCS recommendations) that it's misleading to tell people they will likely be able to recover their data in a reasonable time given a sufficient (and relatively small) quantity of known plaintexts. This is even more true given the existence of high-quality, easy-to-use implementations, like those in PGP/GnuPG, openssl, etc.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Here is one way you could collect a ransom nearly untracably, at least on a small scale.
Require the victim to send you valuable information or perform a valuable service instead of cash. For example, ask them to buy a new copy of adobe photoshop or windows and send the registration keys. Now you can resell this on e-bay or wherever as a legimate copy.
If you were an eco-terrorist you could require them to give a donation to the sierra club or the red-cross disaster relief or donate to president bush's re-election and provide a recepit.
if you were out for revenge or a pervert, you could ask them to post a nude picture of themselves.
you could ask them to buy a large quantity of a stock with few outstanding shares. Do this enough times and you could drive the price up.
it's as untracable as can be.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Some local kid worked out a way (perhaps with only a specific brand/model of HD) to manipulate the location of the read/write head, and to violently tap it against the surface of the hard disk platter.
His program draw a smiley face and the words "HAVE A NICE DAY!" on the HD before resetting the system. I seem to recall him getting investigated by the FBI at some point...
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Malicious Cryptography: Exposing Cryptovirology
d -0764549758.html
Adam Young, Moti Yung
ISBN: 0-7645-4975-8
Paperback
416 pages
February 2004
Published by Wiley: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productC
This is just another if-you-don't-protect-your-data-you-will-regret-it post.
The fact is, this is no more scary than a 'Virus wipes hard drive!'.
If you're prepared to pay money to *maybe* get your files back, you probably have a nigerian stamp in your passport.
It's interesting to see viruses use crypto as an armament, but the defence against such an attack is the same for any other infection.
If you have backups, the payload is Inconveinence.
Now if a virus, knew who your competitor was and emailed the encrypted files to them, and then offered both you and your competitor the key, that wouldbe more interesting.
Or even, put the files on a zombie torrent network, and offer the key on ebay.
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/ven
Payload
The payload is potentially troublesome. It is triggered on any day after August 31, 1998 when closing an infected spreadsheet. When triggered, it picks a worksheet but the active one and loops a thousand times to randomly select used cell that contains numeric value. With 1% chance, it decreases or increases the cell value within 5%.
Although this virus is not infectious in MS Excel 97 spreadsheet files, the payload routine is still called while closing an infected file.
Dear l33t h4x0r:
After a little digging with a few h4x0r friends, we know your name and where you live. I'll make you a deal. If you give me the crypt key to my files, I won't tell your mom what you've been up to. If you want a new PS2 for Christmas, just ask Santa, OK?
love,
Dad
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I think the point the grandparent was getting at is that dir/ls/etc have *nothing to do with Linux*. The GNU system, maybe, but certainly not Linux.
Luke-Jr
Actually, PGP can support various ciphers. IDEA is just one-- and discouraged for usage due to insane patent laws.
Luke-Jr
Back in 1989, an individual sent out a mass mailing to many recipients. The mailing consisted of an envelope including a floppy disk and a license agreement in small print. The software on the disk provided an assessment about the user's risk regarding HIV/AIDS. (Supposedly, users were encouraged to install and run the software.) However, the software also contained a hidden mechanism. After a delay, the mechanism would encrypt and hide files on the user's system. The license agreement specified a license fee ($189 one-off or a $378 "lifetime license") for using the software. This payment was to be sent to a PO box in Panama for "PC Cyborg Corporation." In addition, the license agreement warned of "most serious consequences" for failure to pay the license fee. A file left by the software said that users who paid would receive a "renewal software package." The originator of the software was tracked down but was found unfit to stand trial. (See the "Virus: AIDS Diskette" entry on this page.)