Posted on 05/12/2017 12:52:39 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A massive ransomware campaign appears to have infected a number of organisations around the world.
Computers in thousands of locations have apparently been locked by a program that demands $300 (£230) in Bitcoin.
There have been reports of infections in more than 70 countries, including the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy and Taiwan.
Many security researchers are linking the incidents together.
"This is huge," said Jakub Kroustek at Avast.
Another, at cyber-security firm Kaspersky, said that the ransomware had been spotted cropping up in 74 countries and that the number was still growing.
There were a number of reports that Russia had seen more infections than any other single country.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
download VMWARE and run a virtual instance at home
Then when the ransomware people call you, you can waste their time and laugh at them
I am all for using Special Forces teams to track down these people and eliminate them.
Just for practice.
If they hacked a lot of Russian computers, my guess is that is exactly what will happen. This is the sort of thing about which the Russians have absolutely no sense of humor.
I am not kidding or being facetious in any way.
The amount of harm this can do to an economy, is immense. Not to mention the personal harm that can be caused if someone is a patient at a hospital. Someone can die.
Here, I guess they would have to cuff them, but in some other places, I would have no problem if they went in shooting.
It is like piracy. Until we start treating them like 18th century pirates, it won’t stop and will only get worse.
Strongly agree.
I came to this thread to say exactly the same thing, and you beat me to it. The penalty for this type of brazen criminality should be death because of the immense damage that it can cause to vital infrastructure. And I absolutely would favor sending special ops to eliminate these vermin on the spot. Something dramatic has to be done to deter others from trying this.
And while I agree with you, our society and its attendant legal system have become so calcified with notions of “legal rights” for these out-of-country actors that we will never authorize it. People need to realize that the Constitution and Bill of Rights stops at the nation’s borders. Most of these cybercriminals operate the United States. They should be fair game.
But as I also stated, the Russians never cared for such “legalisms” and they will go kill these people if they get a chance.
Yet another advertizement for OSX and Linux
“download VMWARE and run a virtual instance at home.Then when the ransomware people call you, you can waste their time and laugh at them”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s not how ransomware works. I believe you’re thinking of the “PC help” scam calls. If you your PC is encrypted and locked by ransomeware, they don’t call you and you don’t call them. You either try to unencrypt and unlock or you pay up.
Here’s what you likely have in mind:
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0346-tech-support-scams
Instead, try an anti-ransomware tool, e.g. “Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware” (for Windows) to stop ransomeware before it gets started -
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/malwarebytes-anti-ransomware
Trump and the Russians?
If you are in another country and you break their laws, they can and do damn near anything they want with you, and there isn't a damn thing the USA will do to protect you, because they can't do more than a strongly worded protest. You can be thrown in jail for life in a dungeon for shoplifting.
When I was in the Navy, they told us that if we break the laws of the country we are visiting, we are on our own. There was a sailor who was arrested for buying and using drugs, and he was still in the same prison after two separate deployments. And the Navy made sure we knew about it.
If you are not a citizen and you break our laws, you have no rights, IMO. Or, rather, you should have no rights.
Sounds like IYOGI
Give me a 30 minutes, a baseball bat and a locked room.
The 30 minutes is so I don’t have to get it over all at once.
I detest and despise these people.
Bookmark for later.
About six months ago I had a window pop up on my computer screen.
It stated I had an infection and must contact them to get it fixed.
I don’t remember exactly what I did at the time, but it wound up with me either closing the window or simply turning my computer off.
I rebooted in safe mode. It booted up. I shut down again, and started he machine like normal.
It booted up and I didn’t see any residual effects.
Don’t know if I just got lucky or what, but it seemed to work.
Months later I haven’t seen any evidence of a problem.
bump
Your case sounds like run-of-the-mill malware that hasn’t really done anything to your computer at that stage. It just comes up as a pop-up and pretends to have found various scary-sounding viruses. They are hoping you will contact them, whereupon they will talk you into downloading and installing their “antivirus” software, which will then steal personal information, credit card numbers, passwords, etc. (if these are saved somewhere on your computer). They’ll also charge you for the “privilege” of being robbed while they’re at it.
Wouldn’t doubt it.
I didn’t think it was a legit threat. My thought is, if you get a ransom note, you’re goose is probably already cooked.
I’ve also gotten the pop up on the screen that states it’s from Microsoft, and urges you to clean your computer right away, (and here’s a link...).
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