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New Twist on Spyware--Ransonware (My Title)
LurHQ ^ | March 11, 2006 | by LURHQ Threat Intelligence Group

Posted on 03/16/2006 7:43:24 PM PST by yhwhsman

In May 2005, a trojan called PGPcoder was discovered in the wild by Websense Security Labs. The trojan's purpose was to encrypt a user's files, then demand a ransom for their decryption. Although this scheme seemed novel, it is actually predated by over 15 years, by a similar scam in 1989. LURHQ's Threat Intelligence Group has now discovered a third such scheme involving ransomware which we are calling Cryzip.

Unlike PGPcoder, which used a custom encryption scheme (which was subsequently reverse-engineered by LURHQ), Cryzip uses a commercial zip library in order to store files inside a password-protected zip. Although the zip encryption is stronger, a brute-force attack is still possible on the files, especially if one has a copy of the original file inside the zip.

(Excerpt) Read more at lurhq.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: adware; computer; getamac; linus; linux; macos; malware; ransonware; spyware; threat; trojan; trojans; virus; windows; windoze
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To: CIB-173RDABN
"Keep a set of the operating system software and if something by passes all my protection, just reformat and reload, and start over."

All you have to do is image your system partitions on a different partition with 40% compression AND image those same partitions on spanned CDs. I use Symantec Ghost 7.5, Corp. Ed.

In 5 minutes you are bright-eyed and bush-tailed again.

No kicking the cat, yelling at your old lady, or going on a drunken shooting rampage down the street!

21 posted on 03/17/2006 4:23:36 PM PST by BobS
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To: Duke Nukum
So, LUNIX is a rip-off of a rip-off, then.

More like a rip-off of a rip-off of a rip-off of a rip-off of a rip-off (FMS > CTSS > MULTICS > UNIX > MINIX > Linux). However, Linux is only a very loose "rip-off" of MINIX, since it doesn't have the microkernel architecture.

22 posted on 03/17/2006 6:49:39 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: rzeznikj at stout
Any idea if Minix installs on VMWare (player)?

Yes. Ready-made VMWare images are available at the site. Or you can download MINIX 3 and try it from a live CD. USB-bootable images are also available.

Tanenbaum has definitely gone the "small is good" approach he teaches. From a technical standpoint, it's genius, completely modular, true microkernel (less than 4,000 lines of code). It's probably the most robust and secure UNIX in the world. Even the worst-written video driver shouldn't be able to take down MINIX -- the crashed driver will automatically be restarted. Buffer overflows? MINIX only executes in read-only areas allocated for code.

All of that comes with some performance trade-offs, but you make your choices...

23 posted on 03/17/2006 7:16:16 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
I was just curious--I'm putting the player on my Suse 10 partition. Different perspective, I suppose.

Wouldn't be bad experience-wise either.

24 posted on 03/17/2006 9:50:50 PM PST by rzeznikj at stout (This is a darkroom. Keep the door closed or you'll let all the dark out...)
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To: Duke Nukum

Dukie, stop howling about "rip-offs." The PC BIOS is a rip-off of the IBM PC. MacOS is a rip-off of Unix and the Xerox Alto. Windows is a ripoff of MacOS, VMS, CP/M, etc. Everything's a rip-off of some computationally pure platonic ideal. We get it. Find something else to rant about.


25 posted on 03/17/2006 10:00:32 PM PST by Caesar Soze
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To: Caesar Soze

I'm not howling. I said Windows was a rip off of a rip off too. Just that it sucks less then LUNIX. Unless, of course, you don't actually need to use the machine, like it's a server or something. It's just the anti-social people who promote LUNIX suck at making things that are easy and fun to use. Probably, they suffer from some form of autism and LUNIX is what autism might look like if autism could be given form.


26 posted on 03/17/2006 10:18:40 PM PST by Duke Nukum (To thine own self be true...or relatively true. --Guy Caballero)
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To: Duke Nukum

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I'd prefer an operating system to an thing that needs to be endlessly tweaked.^^^^^^^^^^

You'd love linux then. You install it once, set up your printer, your personal settings and whatever else you think you'll need then you're done. It's very similar to a mac in this regard.

Windows needs constant work and tweaking. This week, tweak your ad-aware settings, next week install the new patches, the week after, make sure you have the antivirus defs up to date. Careful you don't open up that email.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Something that runs software and is generally useful.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Linux runs alot of software. There's very little that you can't do with it these days.


27 posted on 03/18/2006 6:30:35 AM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing (Linux, the #2 OS. Mac, the #3 OS. Apple's own numbers are hard to argue with.)
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To: Duke Nukum
In the meanwhile, I'll play some games while waiting...

That's about all your Windoze toys are good for - playing games and waiting for something to happen.

28 posted on 03/18/2006 7:46:02 AM PST by TechJunkYard (DMCA: Don't Make Content Accessable)
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To: Duke Nukum
It's when you want to do things like edit photos or process words. Then you have to know that Photoshop is called GIMP and Word for LUNIX is called...

"If all of your tools have to look and feel the same way because you can't handle change.... you might be a Windows user."

And there's a treatment for that. It's called WINE - the WINdows Emulator.

.. they can't find any D&D players in the neighborhood..

Well, apparently playing games is the focal point of your life. When you get ready to do some real work, I suppose you can buy something for your X-Box.

29 posted on 03/18/2006 8:08:46 AM PST by TechJunkYard (DMCA: Don't Make Content Accessable)
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To: Duke Nukum

Now, I use windows as much as the next guy. It is fairly useful, and the only place to go if you want to play most modern games.

That said, I've never heard it characterized as "fun." :P


30 posted on 03/18/2006 8:23:50 AM PST by Constantine XIII
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To: TechJunkYard
...you have to buy a decent usenet client.

You do?

31 posted on 03/18/2006 8:28:34 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
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To: Duke Nukum

No one writes very many large programs from scratch, regardless of what it does.


32 posted on 03/18/2006 8:29:02 AM PST by Constantine XIII
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To: yhwhsman
Only one solution - death penalty for malware producers/distributors.

Our Navy is rounding up pirates on the open seas (again), why not do so for those that terrorize across cyberspace?
33 posted on 03/18/2006 3:07:10 PM PST by anymouse
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To: Senator Bedfellow; Golden Eagle
...you have to buy a decent usenet client.
You do?

You mean to tell me that someone is giving away a NNTP client that runs on Windows?

Oh man, GE is not gonna like this. It takes money out of the US IT economy and exposes all kinds of trade secrets to our enemies. Who knows what the Chicoms can do with a free usenet client? They can use it to suck all of our technical newsgroups dry and not pay a cent for the information! Horrors!

Actually, I've tried Xnews and I really like it. I have it on the Windows side of my "travelling" 600E that I use on the road. After browsing through the NNTP servers on my sister's Verizon DSL account, I can now say that my RoadRunner servers truly suck.

34 posted on 03/19/2006 7:15:59 AM PST by TechJunkYard (DMCA: Don't Make Content Accessable)
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To: yhwhsman

What's a "ranson"?

Something you pay to a "kidmaper"?

Dan


35 posted on 03/19/2006 7:18:21 AM PST by BibChr ("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" [Jer. 8:9])
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To: BibChr
What's a "ranson"?
Something you pay to a "kidmaper"?

Yea, something like that. :)

Sorry, I usually catch things like that. I'm losing the feeling in my right hand, is making typing a rather interesting experience.

36 posted on 03/19/2006 1:20:59 PM PST by yhwhsman ("Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small..." -Sir Winston Churchill)
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To: TechJunkYard
Well, I dunno about wrecking the NNTP client industry, mostly because I don't think there is an NNTP client industry. I've been browsing Usenet for long, long time now, on a variety of operating systems, and I don't recall ever having to buy a client for any of them ;)

After browsing through the NNTP servers on my sister's Verizon DSL account, I can now say that my RoadRunner servers truly suck.

Surprisingly, news is one thing Vz does pretty well. I switched from Verizon DSL to Earthlink/Covad about a year ago, mostly because Verizon refused to increase my line speed to the level that I was being offered elsewhere. EL's servers aren't truly horrendous, but it's definitely a step down from Vz. But, I get more speed, so it's more or less worth it...

37 posted on 03/19/2006 1:42:13 PM PST by Senator Bedfellow
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