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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
If it were real, we would have heard it from Symantec or McAffee long before a third-world news website.
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yet another reason to do regular backups, so you are never solely dependent on your local copies.
so I figure the virus author could deduct the money from my account, himself.
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
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.
What will do that is a virus that replaces all .jpg files found with goatse, tubgirl and lemonparty.
So many people have stored their digital camera photos on vulnerable Windows PCs. The only thing that will get them to secure those boxes is the threat that little Sophie's birthday photos, or the last time they went on holiday with Grandma before the illness, might be replaced with hideous porn by some virus...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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,
(or discover it through brute force if they dare wait that long)
McAfee runs on an awful lot of enterprise networks, and tons of home users. I wonder how long brute forcing a key through distributed computing would really take. I wonder if McAfee is already using cycles for nefarious reasons. How long until McAfee becomes self aware!
I need more tinfoil
Never confuse volume with power.
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."-
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'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)
Oh, wait a minute, never mind...
I forgot we were talking about viruses.
At home, I don't have the problem; since more honorable vendors that distribute their software via apt-get don't run these kinds of protection rackets.