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Over 9,000 PCs In Australia Infected By TorrentLocker Ransomware

Posted by samzenpus on from the cash-for-corrupted-computers dept.

First time accepted submitter River Tam writes Cybercriminals behind the TorrenLocker malware may have earned as much as $585,000 over several months from 39,000 PC infections worldwide, of which over 9,000 were from Australia. If you're a Windows user in Australia who's had their files encrypted by hackers after visiting a bogus Australia Post website, chances are you were infected by TorrentLocker and may have contributed to the tens of thousands of dollars likely to have come from Australia due to this digital shakedown racket.

4 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was wondering too, it's in the article "The main way that PCs become infected is by spam email that encourages the victim to open what appears to be a document but is in fact an executable file that will install the malware and encrypt the files. In other words, it relies on social engineering rather than exploiting an un-patched bug. In some cases, the malware is delivered within a .zip file while in others, the message contains a link to the .zip file."

  2. Re:How? by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This malware relies on weakness in wetware rather than software. No general-purpose operating system can save you from PEBKAC issues, at most partially mitigate them. Unix-style execute bit rather than Windows' extensions reduces the number of vulnerable idiots by like 2-3 orders of magnitude, but you can bet that if the webpage kindly provides instructions, a good number of marks will still manage to get infected.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  3. Re:I can't believe people would fall for this! by deek · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, like I'm going to click on that link you posted! Can't fool me.

  4. Re:How? by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Informative

    This malware relies on weakness in wetware rather than software. No general-purpose operating system can save you from PEBKAC issues, at most partially mitigate them. Unix-style execute bit rather than Windows' extensions reduces the number of vulnerable idiots by like 2-3 orders of magnitude, but you can bet that if the webpage kindly provides instructions, a good number of marks will still manage to get infected.

    It's really just another form of Dancing Pigs social engineering attack. You give the user a plausible reason for downloading and installing software, and you'll find users go out of t heir way to install it.

    Doesn't matter the OS. And it can be anything - be it porn, a "private porn browser" or other such tool and any OS is vulnerable. (Yes, "private porn browser" - download now and browse your porn in privacy and even your wife won't find out...).