Many Australians Forced To Pay For "Unbreakable" Cryptolocker Ransomware

An anonymous reader writes: Australians are paying thousands of dollars to overseas hackers to rid their computers of an unbreakable virus [Cryptolocker]. The deputy chairwoman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Delia Rickard, said over the past two months there had been a spike in the number of people falling victim to the scam. The commission has received 2,500 complaints this year and estimates about $400,000 has been paid to the hackers. Bad news for Australians: this is just one of many targetting the country.

Comments

Every customer of mine

[dwywit]

Gets Cryptolocker installed. Via Group Policy, it prevents, among other things, anything being executed from the user's temp directory/ies - which is where email attachments are placed for whatever operation they require - picture preview, etc. It's not a guarantee, but it presents a big obstacle to any attacker attempting to fool a user into executing their code simply by opening an email.

Not affiliated, just a happy user.

Re:Every customer of mine

[Billly Gates]

It can still get on via angler malware kit. The type from yahoo.

It is run only from ram making it impossible to block or detect.

Re:Every customer of mine

[dwywit]

Oh, bloody hell.

Cryptoprevent from FoolishIT

Re:Every customer of mine

[dbIII]

I'm sort of curious how this ransomware is being executed by clicking on a single link in an e-mail

How?
"Outlook not so good."
Actually it's the combination of MS Outlook and IE that have such a "feature" for convenience. All it takes is for IE to be directed to the site and it helpfully runs the malware - no questions asked.

Some of the emails have been from the tax office (equivalent to IRS), some have been about package deliveries with a tracking link and others have been about speeding fines. They are aimed squarely to catch people who are not idiots, just not as paranoid about computers as is required these days.

There have been a few articles about it over the last year apart from the article linked above.

Scam?

[Kjella]

Scam would imply this is some kind of fraud or swindle, like a con artist trying to trick you. This is plain extortion, they've kidnapped your data and is holding it ransom. If bad things really do happen if you don't pay, it's not a scam any more than being robbed at gunpoint is.

One client has fallen for it four times

[Gumbercules!!]

I know someone who personally accounts for 4 of those installations. On the same computer. Because she's fallen for the same frikkin scam four times. Every time I ask her "why did you open an email claiming to be from the IRS, when we don't have an IRS in Australia", she tells me "because it sounded real". You should see the grammar in these scam emails, too: they're written like "please effective the transactionments with the rapid or we can has your cheeseburgers". Yet she's still fallen for it. Four. Times.

Fortunately, I back that site up effectively.

Re:One client has fallen for it four times

[MrNaz]

Have you considered replacing her computer with one of those Fisher Price toy computers that just makes beeping noises when you press the keys? From what you say, it doesn't seem like she'd notice.