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."

Comments

Scummy yet brilliant.

[MrQuacker]

Its not like you can call the police and complain about it. You'll instantly get labeled as a pedo and have your kids taken away.

Re:Scummy yet brilliant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that from your post American law has a much bigger problem than the Russians do in this particular instance.

Re:Scummy yet brilliant.

[Joce640k]

This is why "possession" of something shouldn't be a crime. Anything can be planted in your house/PC/car/whatever without your knowledge.

A country which allows a computer virus to ruin your life and make you forever unemployable has some serious problems with its laws.

PS: I cleaned up a machine with this three or four months ago here in Spain.

Re:Scummy yet brilliant.

[Anonymous Coward]

"PS: I cleaned up a machine with this three or four months ago here in Spain."

With MyCleanPC no doubt.

Re:Scummy yet brilliant.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

This has nothing to do with "possession" or even crime in and of itself.

This has to do with the hysterical overreaction of the general public towards anything which is so much as suspected as being involved with or related to child pornography. Victims of this ransom-ware may well pay in fear of being ripped to pieces by an angry mob, and their fears would not be all that far fetched at this point. At the very least, they stand a good chance of having their entire life ruined should even a hint of suspicion fall on them.

Child pornography, like all hysterias, has become an excuse for a segments of the public to indulge in chaos, anarchy and criminal behaviour in their reaction to it. Even a pointed finger can now be a life or death sentence for innocent people. This is why it was important not to let the rule of law slide on this or any other issue.

But no. People wanted to indulge their outrage. I suppose democracies get what they deserve.

Re:Scummy yet brilliant.

[t4ng*]

Yes, because something like that could never happen in a democracy, so it must have been a joke!

Re:Who would fall for a fee?

[Amouth]

but even if it is only in that area - you have to prove you didn't do it, and even if you can do that you have to do it n court, even if you come away "free" then it is still there that you where once prosecuted for it, and you have to live/survive that process which will more than likely ruin your life as you know it.

Re:de-lousing...

[SuricouRaven]

You are not the target of this scam.

Re:aka Idiot tax

[Anonymous Coward]

In most places, Illegal porn gets you a a dirty look from the judge and a fine if you are really unlucky. CP on the other hand can get you a 20+ year sentence in the US.

It doesn't matter if the victim watches it or not. The scammers are hoping to exploit the fact that their victims would be reluctant to seek help out of fear of false prosecution, which is not as far fetched as I'd like to. Personally, I'd suggest zero-write to anyone who caught this bug. I wouldn't count on the malware authors not putting incriminating evidence on infected systems and even putting spiteful logic bombs which trigger when you clean the infection. Better paranoid than trying to reason with the pitchfork jury.

Re:It's worldwide

[deroby]

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