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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."
Where's Jack Bauer when you need him ???
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
If only I hadn't erased Jack Bauer's cell from my contact list after the last season...
My 0.02 cents
I think, personally, that human stupidity is a gold mine, and I'm slowly losing any inhibition and cashing in on it.
Way ahead of you. I went into IT security years ago. It is a gold mine. You can basically sell snakeoil and people will kill each other to buy it from you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Simple. Lock them in a cell with a person whose complete pr0n collection is now encrypted. Then go out and come back about an hour later. They talk. They will confess everything, including the assassination of JFK, just as long as they don't have to spend more time with someone whose jackoff material is gone and they're to blame for it.
Talk about motivation!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fortunately, we had Interbank Data Recovery Services. And Interbank does more than just acquire the decryption key.
That's because Interbank vows to find out who sent you the ransom and hunt them down like animals. Like filthy, dirty animals. That's the Interbank difference. See, I don't care how Interbank's secret police get things done. I just care that they get things done. For us.
Plus, because we'd enrolled in their Premiere Membership program, Interbank also hunted down friends and relatives of the guy who had encrypted our data, dragged them from their beds in the middle of the night, and set fire to their homes.
You backup to the same computer? I don't even backup to the same state!
Psh... backups? I restore my data from a parallel universe, where I didn't get hit by a virus in the first place.
So this is another lesson in Computer Security 101: "No one likes Backups, but everyone likes Restore"?
Enterprise-level backup apps are almost always 3rd-party, not "some kind of unreliable M$ thing". Any serious solution also has a means to restore to bare metal, so in effect you need no OS at all to do this.
(and when was the last time anybody kept any current work on a floppy? Cripes - 1992 called and they want their backup devices back).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
> Psh... backups? I restore my data from a parallel universe, where I didn't get hit by a virus in the first place.
K dkd that, but kt turns out they use a slkghtly dkfferent alphabet kn that unkverse.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.