Slashdot Mirror
US Warns Users of Child-Porn Blackmail Ransomware
coondoggie writes "The nasty Trojan known as Citadel malware, which is based on Zeus, has typically been used to extort money from online banking users, but a new variant is making the rounds that tries to get your money by saying you looked at child porn sites and must pay a violation fee to the U.S. Department of Justice. This variation, called Reveton, lures the victim to a drive-by download website, at which time the ransomware is installed on the user's computer, says the U.S. Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Once installed, the computer freezes and a screen is displayed warning the user they have violated United States Federal Law."
My dad's PC had this, although apparently the creators didn't do their homework very well. Belgium having 2 (main) languages the scareware used the wrong language for this part of the country so he hardly understood what needed doing (not everybody speaks both languages). Off course the police logo etc made it look kind of daunting and -although it started up ridiculously slow- once it took over the pc became completely unusable.
It was rather easy to get rid of (safe mode, regedit, hijack-this and then a full scan with Security Essentials -which seemingly had missed it originally!)
The part I don't get is : how do the scammers get to their money (assuming some people are silly enough to pay) without the possibility of being traced back ?
=> shouldn't there be ridiculously easy traces to follow via paysafecard.com ??
=> worst case it should be easy enough to have these -at least!- blocked
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
Yes, because something like that could never happen in a democracy, so it must have been a joke!