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Petya Ransomware Uses DOS-Level Lock Screen, Prevents OS Boot Up (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new type of ransomware was discovered that crashes your PC into a BSOD, restarts your computer, and then prevents your OS from starting by altering the hard drive's master boot record (MBR). This keeps the user locked in a DOS screen that doubles as the ransomware's ransom note. The ransomware's name is Petya, and was currently seen only targeting HR departments in Germany.
According to the update in TFA, so just repairing the MBR will not solve the problem.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Sounds more like a problem where the author of the article doesn't know the difference between DOS and "not GUI".
This changes the Master Boot Record and encrypts files while it displays the skull logo and warning message. From what I can tell, you can simply unplug your computer to stop the process of encrypting your files... the earlier you stop, the fewer files are affected.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
What happens when I open it with WINE?
The virus needs to modify the boot sequence so the next reboot starts its "fake" CHKDSK (to encrypt the disk and display a lock screen).
Under most Unix, root-level privilege are necessary to write to a raw block device (as required to change the MBR) and as Wine is usually ran under an end-users account, it simply lacks the necessary rights to perform this action.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I don't *always* boot from non-writable media.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If we all volunteer to kick in a little to the ransom gang, is it possible we could spread it to all HR people worldwide? A world full of hamstrung HR people would allow us to all get direct-hire jobs.
They probably did, and the "applicant" disregarded that. Personally, I think that if you have to trim the pile of resumes/CVs, removing the ones that broke the submission rules and the ones that have serious spelling and/or grammatical mistakes is a good start.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Black hat virus writers are a bunch of bad guys, but it would be some next level evil to turn a Macintosh computer to boot into Dos or Windows.
God spoke to me
But following a link and downloading&executing arbitrary crap from somewhere on the internet is better?
Just how stupid are people really?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Some jokes never get old.
Other ones... get integrated into the next version of systemd.
I honestly entered this story hoping to read lots of merciless ridicule of these phrases.
Where is it? Or have all the geeks finally left Slashdot?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Following rules doesn't get you very far in life. At best you'll be just another cog in the global market, soon to be replaced by a computer, whose low cost is only matched by its ability to follow rules, however stupid those rules are.
(Score:4, Insightful)
No, please.
The reason to use 320x240 is because the pixels were square.
I would agree with you, except DOOM actually did use 320x200, and indeed the pixels were rectangular. It's a common problem that forks (known in DOOM circles as "source ports") face when they try to change up the rendering engine. Many of the graphics in the game were even designed with the knowledge that the screen would be stretched due to the non-square pixels, meaning that unstretching would degrade them.
320x200 has slightly rectangular pixels, but the framebuffer is linear and fits in 64KiB, which is the largest segment size that can be accesses in real mode DOS.
Yeah, except doom uses DPMI, so this doesn't even matter.
That's as much a misconception than "text mode = DOS".
This is neither. This is malware that installs code to the MBR that loads before any OS. In fact, it's sort of it's own OS, running on bare metal.
FC Closer