[Swordmaker]

This takes industrial strength stupid to be damaged by this malware. First you have to be crooked to download a bit torrent to steal software. . . then you have to turn off the built in protections against installing an unsigned. un-certificated application from an unknown source. . . and then you have to have NO BACKUP.

Don't download software from untrusted sources. DUH!

[Swordmaker]

A very poorly written (In Swift) Ransom malware for Macs has been spotted in the wild. . . but you have to be industrial strength stupid to get caught by it. 1st, you have to be a crooked pirate willing to download a tool to steal software to even be interested in the app that masquerades as a tool to break into commercial software from a bit torrent site. Then you have to be stupid enough to turn off the built-in protections in OS X or macOS that prevents installing non-certificated, unauthorized applications. . . and then you have to have NOT MADE ANY BACK-UPS of your data. If you do all of this, you probably deserve to lose your data to this poorly written malware. — PING!

Apple Mac Ransom Ware
Ping!

The latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword "ApplePingList" on FreeRepublic's Search.

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me

[rwilson99]

If John Podesta’s data isn’t safe... no one’s data is safe.

[ctdonath2]

Yup.

“OSX/Filecoder.E masquerades as a cracking tool ... . ... users would need to override the default security settings.”

Yup. Industrial-strength stupid user required. Starting out with serious malice to obtain what claims, with no validation, to be a _free_ (why?) tool for bypassing the “pay first” code on affordable software (not cheap, but affordable), then be _surprised_ when it bites _you_ in the a$$. Next that biting requires deliberately disabling protections put in place to _prevent_ such nastiness.

Pause here for a moment for a tangent. As a father of 2, what the he11 is it about a certain age group that believes that “don’t do that” is NOT stated for the recipient’s best interests? Does the [ab]user in question think Apple went through all that trouble to enact security _just_ to annoy the user? Resuming...

Where are we...ah. Would-be criminal obtains unverified criminal tools and is surprised he’s the victim of a criminal - as if user & malware author had agreed to work in their mutual best interest. (Ab)user takes deliberate steps to bypass security to bring this un-vetted source-unknown crap onto his own machine. And then, as noted, ... no backup? Really?

And here’s the biggest kicker of all: some fing troll is going to come on this thread and _blame_Apple_ for this “maybe your purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others” incident.

[Ciaphas Cain]

Have never been hit with ransomeware or known anyone who has been struck, to the best of my knowledge. But I understand it is becoming a real problem.

Anyone convicted beyond all doubt of creating/ employing ransomware should be given automatic death penalty.

[Flick Lives]

The biggest problem with this malware, though, is the way in which it encrypts files. It generates a single encryption key for all files and then stores the files in encrypted zip archives. However, the malware doesn’t appear to have any ability to communicate with an external server, so the encryption key is never sent to the attacker before being destroyed.

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Malware has bugs