Using Distributed Computing To Thwart Ransomware

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The folks at Kaspersky labs are turning to distributed computing to factor the RSA key used by the GPcode virus to encrypt people's files and hold them for ransom. There are two 1024-bit RSA keys to break, which should require a network of about 15 million modern computers to spend a year per key factoring them. Unfortunately, there appear to be no vulnerabilities in the virus' use of RSA, unlike some previous cases. Perhaps more interestingly, there's some debate over whether people should bother cracking it. After all, what if they were trying to trick us into factoring the key for a root signing authority? Besides, there's a more direct method of breaking the encryption: track down the people who wrote the virus and force them to talk."

Comments

Re:I've got a better idea

[DaedalusHKX]

Stop using windows for anything other than gaming? Yeah, what a novel concept!

Wait, I think I know this... its like... oh wait, its like... ummm... ahem... having a brain and using it?

I think, personally, that human stupidity is a gold mine, and I'm slowly losing any inhibition and cashing in on it. The people who created governments realized this. The people who created religions realized this. The people who run fear based vaporware businesses realized this. Surely the only REAL issue at hand is human stupidity, which, as many have said, is possibly the ONLY boundless thing in existence. Why not tap into such a boundless resource to create "free resources" ??

Jeebus

[blackjackshellac]

There are a lot of idiots reading /. these days. i bow to all of your superior abilities to backup all of your files, constantly so that you will never, ever possibly lose a bit of data. Sorry, I meant to say that you're a bunch of wankstains.

Most Likely to Not Use it and to Pay.

[twitter]

Corporate users are the target. They may have a backup, but know it's some kind of unreliable M$ thing. It will take a long time to get it and it will leave some kind of black mark on their record. Many of them will simply pay and wait for their computer to fail some other way. They might use a live CD to sabotage their computer, which would give them an excuse for not getting their work done. Most of them avoid the problem by keeping current work on a floppy or CDROM.

Re:1024 bits is big

[burris]

All of the people in this thread are ignoramuses. Nobody uses complete trial and error or the Sieve of Erastothenes for serious factorization. There are much faster algorithms such as the general number field sieve. Try actually knowing something about the topic before commenting.