Have anyone heard of CryptoLocker ransomware?

[bondi688]

Hacker virus seizes files, ransoms for cash | Boston Herald

"FBI spokesman Greg Comcowich said the agency is investigating after CryptoLocker ransomware — as the virus is known — took computers hostage at the Swansea Police Department Nov. 6.

Ryan said the department finally decided to pay the $750 ransom demand for two bitcoins — a peer-to-peer online currency system that is difficult to track — several days after calling in computer experts and the FBI. He said the department’s files were recovered last Sunday after paying the hackers, and no information was compromised."


It is apparently transmitted by email links and attachments, and it takes over the computer and encrypts all files on the computers, and threatens to make them unrecoverable permanently unless a ransom was paid within 100 hours. The US was targeted by this virus and supposedly 12000 computers were infected in 1 week, between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1.



It is scary when IT personnel from the police department and the FBI cannot solve the problem. And why would this kind of cyber blackmail allowed to go on by agency like DHS?

 

[photoguy]

Another thread on it here: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/interesting-new-virus-cryptolocker-68876.html

Seems strange that they wouldn't just recover files from their backups.

 

[chilkoot]

It's "allowed to go on" because it's difficult to track down the perpetrators.

This just serves to reinforce the usual precautions:
-Don't click on any link that has an "exe" suffix
-Don't click on anything in an unsolicited e-mail.
-Look closely to make sure a website "looks" legitimate, and remember that bad guys strive to make their fake sites look real (watch out for misspellings, bad grammar, etc.)

 

[bondi688]

Another thread on it here: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/interesting-new-virus-cryptolocker-68876.html

Seems strange that they wouldn't just recover files from their backups.

Thanks. I did a search and did not find the thread you kindly pointed me to. I might have misspelled the name of the virus. I want to find out more what I can do to not to fall victim to this kind of cyber piracy. I backed up my important files in an external hard drive after I read the story.

 

[Alan]

Thanks. I did a search and did not find the thread you kindly pointed me to. I might have misspelled the name of the virus. I want to find out more what I can do to not to fall victim to this kind of cyber piracy. I backed up my important files in an external hard drive after I read the story.

I also use an external hard drive, that is switched off until the times I do the backup.