Posted on 12/25/2013 6:51:56 PM PST by Nachum
A virulent form of ransomware has now infected about quarter of a million Windows computers, according to a report by security researchers. Cryptolocker scrambles users´ data and then demands a fee to unencrypt it alongside a countdown clock. Dell Secureworks said that the US and UK had been worst affected. It added that the cyber-criminals responsible were now targeting home internet users after initially focusing on professionals. The firm has provided a list of net domains that it suspects have been used to spread the code, but warned that more are being generated every day. Ransomware has existed since at least 1989,
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Mark for later
This kind of thing is proof positive that they are monitoring us for their own nefarious surveillance purposes. Otherwise, given their vast capabilities, they'd nail these suckers to a wall.
Over the past few decades, the Feral government has become a vast uncontrollable beast. More than voting is going to be required to tix it.
Wine?
The whole concept of making files executable based on the filename is so incredibly lame. People have been paying for this one decision of microsoft for decades now.
Linux and Apple are far superior tech.
We maintain three sets of MS Windows and Linux distro systems: online public network, offline private network, and standalones. Media are never shared between the online public network computers and the other computers. With one exception, the isolation has succeeded in keeping the offline computers and offline data secure.
The one exception was an HP Pavilion desktop computer. It was purchased to handle an urgent compatibility issue with some Adobe software. Microsoft at the time required this system to have access to the Internet and the Microsoft servers long enough to provide the critical updates and complete the initial setup of this brand new computer out of the box. The moment the Internet connection was established, a rootkit hijacked control of the computer away from the user, redirected the connection away from Microsoft’s automated update site, took the computer to a source of pornography that proceeded to flash an unending seried of pornagraphic images onscreen. A hard reset had to be used to shutdown the computer. This brand new computer was evidently somehow compromised before it came out of the box, because the user never had so much as one second of opportunity to do anything whatsoever to cause a malware infection.
Users in India have been complaining they are too large and leak critical datastreams.
“I’ve gotten several very suspicious emails lately. Most recently, I got an email confirming an airline reservation that I never made, but it had a .zip attachment, something a real airline would never do.”
I received much more personal service. I received a telephone call from someone who had an accent an awful lot like someone from Pakistan or India. They had my name, address, information about one of the client computers, and more. They pretended to be a contractor for Microsoft offering anti-malware solutions. When I pretended to play their game and insisted on some proof of their Microsfot authorizations, they strung me along for a long while before abandoning the effort and hanging up.
They were very obviously the crackers who had hijacked some of the clients, and they thought they could do some social engineering to persuade me to give them more access and control. I tried to report the incident to Microsoft security, but they just put me off to someone in India who then tried to sell me tech support at costs exceeding what I paid for the computer that had been compromised. So much for Microsoft as usual....
Some of the suggestions of using group policy to disable some execution prevention isn’t a bad idea, but it’s impractical for some enterprises that use a wide variety of applications. :-(
Especially when those are the very services being used, and the application used is not available on any other platform besides the notorius MS Windows.
I would advise using Ubuntu. It has Libre software (which is comparable to Microsoft Office) and its less likely to get viruses. But if you must use Windows for something (like games), don’t ever surf the net with it.
Unfortunately, the brokerages and other business related service almost always refuse to use Linux or other non-Microsoft operating systems. So, you have to go online with a Microsoft Windows system and all of those vulnerable services which cannot be turned off because they are necessary for the applications being used.
There are a few brokerages and banks that support Linux type clients, but they are few and typically not the businesses you need to access. Apple is not much better and is getting more vulnerable as the iPhone and tablets become more common inusage.
Videos here worth watching, from the guy at FoolishIT.com (not to be confused with “full’o’****.com”):
http://www.youtube.com/user/diskoperatingsystem?feature=watch
BTTT
No thanks. How about a simple summation of what the video relates instead, for those of us who do not have unlimited bandwidth and lots of Mb/s download speed and do not care to watch some oddball vid that another decides should be viewed by all?
If you had actually looked at the URL I posted, you would have realized that it wasn’t a direct link to a video, so your concerns about bandwidth aren’t valid.
Beyond that, because of your adversarial attitude, you’re on your own.
Have a nice day.
Most people get spam like that all the time. They're obviously phony.
Sorry, WhiskeyX, meant that for the person who said it (Fresh Wind).
So, "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" to you in responce, and as certain friends would say; "May you live in interesting times".
Despite your obvious wishes to the contrary. Happy Holidays, grams!
Thanks!
Yes; as soon as I booted up the computer, there it was. So of course it won’t let get to Start, another window, etc.
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