Virus that holds your computer to ransom


A new virus that seizes control of personal computer files and demands ransom money from the owner has been unleashed on the internet.

Victims of a "ransomware" attack are unable to get access to their hard drives unless they pay off the hackers.

In some versions of the fraud, computer users are told to buy drugs from an online chemist in exchange for a password that will free their files.

In others, they are instructed to transfer money to an overseas bank account to prevent the program wiping the files.

Although the virus can be blocked by up-to-date anti-virus software, there are concerns that many computers are unprotected.

The fraud emerged in America last year and has now appeared in Britain. One of its first victims was Helen Barrow, a 40-year-old nurse from Littleborough, near Rochdale.

She was distraught when she discovered that her computer files had been replaced by a folder protected with a 30-digit password.

She also discovered a new file on her computer desktop named "INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO GET YOUR FILES BACK". It told her she would be given the password to access her files if she bought drugs from an online pharmacy.

Mrs Barrow, who works as a senior sister at Rochdale Infirmary, said: "When I realised what had happened, I just felt sick to the core. I was in shock. It was a horrible feeling and I thought I was going to lose all of my work.

Helen Barrow
Helen Barrow's computer was held to ransom by the Archiveus virus

"I had lots of family photographs and personal letters on the computer and to think that other people could have been looking at them was awful."

Her computer became infected when she opened an e-mail attachment that claimed to be an anti-virus program. The virus that attacked her computer is known as Archiveus.

Mrs Barrow, a mother of two, contacted police and a computer expert who recovered some of the files, which included course work for her nursing degree.

Earlier versions of the ransomware program instructed victims to pay the ransom through online websites such as eGold or Webmoney. Others demand payments to overseas accounts.

Greg Day, a security expert with McAfee, said: "Sadly we are seeing more of this type of attack in recent months. It is a trend that started off in the business community and has now extended more into the consumer space. "

"If people are effectively to protect against these kind of attacks, we would recommend they get good anti-virus software, have a firewall that controls what information people can access on your computer, and keep up to date with the security patches.

"If people find themselves being blackmailed like this they should contact their local police force.

"They should also contact their software security vendor who might be able to help them recover their work."

Source:- Telegraph News

:shock:

Ransom!

Thanks God I have the updated software.

Mcafee 2005 (Love that)
Spy sweeper
Desktop firewall
Kaspersky antihacker
Ad-aware personal

made my computer little secure :twisted:

I agree, Khan, it isn`t worth cutting corners where Internet Security is concerned.

you know the most overlooked but growing segment of the security related field in computers is stopping things from calling home from your computer.

So many people are so paranoid about things getting on their computer they totally overlook the fact that what calls out is the bigger issue.

Plus we have become so scared we load our machines up with all sorts of extra software that in fact oftentimes just causes more overhead and slows us down.. good surfing habits should keep your machine free of 95% of all spyware, not clicking balloons and buttons that appear on your screen and of course shutting off you messenger service in windows to stop IP related spam.. NOT using IE and all it's security related issues..

The biggest coming trend is going to be hardware based firewall devices.. they are getting cheaper and cheaper and they don't require any cpu cycles to be used as they are NOT software based.plus they are infinitely more configurable and they stop a lot more than the vast majority of software based firewalls..

I can't say I've ever understood the theory behind a software based firewall.. that's kinda like hoping a screen door will stop the rain from getting in

I work online almost all day long and have an 8 machine network at my home office and since 1997 I've never had a single piece of spyware or virus.. now having said that I don't cruise personal's sites or music download sites the stuff that most kids get into which is where a large amount of the dregs of the online world hang out...