Virus Hold Computer Files 'Hostage' for $200

dwayner79 sent in a story about a new virus making the rounds- this one is unique because it locks your files and then demands a $200 ransom to get them back. It seems to me that this might leave some sort of tracable money trail. They don't have much information on any particular transmission mechanism, they just talk about web pages giving it up.

It won't get a penny from me...

[yotto]

...Until I see a photograph of my files with today's paper.

Cat got your tongue? (something important seems t

[Anonymous Coward]

Virus writers need to eat too!
-r

This could be good

[a_greer2005]

IF it takes spyware hostage

Re:It won't get a penny from me...

[c0ldfusi0n]

In other news, virus writers associate with milk producers to print the output of "dir" on the back of the milk cartons.

Get the FBI involved

[1967mustangman]

Would the Lindberg Law apply to kidnapped files as well?

Payment Options

[BunnyClaws]

Do they accept PayPal?

Heh

[TheRealMindChild]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH GNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It appears to have infected CmdrTaco and now the news is being held hostage!!!!!!!!??!?!?!!!!

1) Infect news site and hold "stories" hostage
2) Hold a slashpoll to see if anyone noticed
3) ...
4) PROFIT!

I use Bank of America...

[Anonymous Coward]

so I figure the virus author could deduct the money from my account, himself.

What?

[His name cannot be s]

What happened?

Did they Install windows?

was the email address [e-mail]?

tee-hee

G

That's not news...

[LegendOfLink]

I had a virus like that once, it was called M$.W!nd0ws.ME. It was horrible, once it infected your computer, it would display this wretched blue screen filled with hieroglyphics and demanded that you hit some arcane character sequence.

This one was a little different than the virus talked about in the story. You had to already drop $99 bucks for it and then it STILL crashed your PC.

Re:I call hoax

[fbjon]

Perhaps they're still beta-testing the virus?

Ransom

[mcleaver]

SOmeone wrote: "this one is unique because it locks your files and then demands a $200 ransom to get them back." Unique? sounds like a description of anti-virus software to me.

Wow

[NubKnacker]

"This seems fully malicious," said Joe Stewart, a researcher at Chicago-based Lurqh who studied the attack software.

Gee, I wonder how he figured that out....

Isn't that a feature

[overshoot]

that Microsoft is adding to the next version of Office?

MS in disguise?

[MrKahuna]

Hmmm, is Microsoft testing their Longhorn upgrade incentive plan? Send in your money and get your license key, we've already downloaded and installed it for you. :-)

Re:your new around here arent you

[trandism]

Then again I still had Freecell and Minesweeper so it wasn't all bad ....which until today are the best software available for the Windows platform

Re:a fix

[Mr Guy]

(or discover it through brute force if they dare wait that long)


McAfee runs on an awful lot of enterprise networks, and tons of home users. I wonder how long brute forcing a key through distributed computing would really take. I wonder if McAfee is already using cycles for nefarious reasons. How long until McAfee becomes self aware!

I need more tinfoil

Why so much press..

[technomancer68]

This has been out for years, it's called Windows XP Activation.

Dont let them win

[Timesprout]

This happened to me so I called Mel Gibson because he has a proven history of resolving these demands without paying the ransom. Worked out great in the end, my files were freed without me paying the $200 ransom. I did have to pay Mel $10 million for his time though which was a bit of a bummer.

Insightful, but disgusting.

[ciroknight]

virus that replaces all .jpg files found with goatse, tubgirl and lemonparty.

Thanks for giving 'em the idea. Next time I go to look at pr0.. I mean my pictures, I'm going to be in fear of opening any of them.. *grumble*

Re:Finally!

[MullerMn]

I knew what goatse was.
I knew what tubgirl was.
Never heard of lemonparty before.
Now I know.

Allow me to be the first to say:
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yes, it's possible

[3770]

What the programmer needs to do is to buy a speed boat and have the victim drop the bag from a bridge into the boat and then flee and stage his own death with an explosion.

I've seen it in the movies.

The trick is to do that without spending more than $200.

New Variant

[Timberwolf0122]

If you dont send the money with in two weeks they start sending the files back, bit by bit.

Sounds familiar...

[Source Quench]

This is what happened when I installed windows 98... it crashed and a dialog box appeared and demanded that I upgrade to windows XP in order to save my files from digital heaven.

Sounds a lot like

[nightskier]

Windows XP Pro.

Re:Gives new meaning

[njfuzzy]

No, that's pretty much the original meaning.

Stockholm Syndrome

[zbeeble]

What happens if after I pay the money, my files do not want to come back ?

Re:a fix

[Anonymous Coward]

A simple command to fix this? try
"restore backup"

'restore' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

.

Re:This won't last long

[Mysticalfruit]

Then...

"Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure"...

Re:"Malicious Cryptography: Exposing Cryptovirolog

[timster121]

The author's name is 14608decf3c24b62a64015d411a862a640e5c1.

Course, you'll have to read the book to figure out how to decode it.

Re:a fix

[jschottm]

I need more tinfoil

There's a family in CA that would prolly be willing to make you a great deal on some tin foil, only slightly used. How big's your house?

There will be no negotiations.

[vertinox]

I'm sorry, but we don't negotiate with terrorists. The files knew the danger when they took the job.

C:\>format c:

Wow, it's like the movie "Hackers"... only lamer

[Shaper_pmp]

Wow - it's like "Hackers"... only ten years after the idea even made the mainstream. And much more low-rent. And without the cool graphics and computer-generated voice. And with less supertankers. And without Angelina Jolie with her nips out.

How lame is that?

(And that's leaving aside the huge number of social and technical ways this scam could be improved...)

typo

[commodoresloat]

you misspelled "ls"

Oh, wait a minute, never mind...

I forgot we were talking about viruses.

Re:a fix

[91degrees]

Unless you found some very fast new way of factoring primes, that'd take a very long time to crack

I have. The factors of a prime, are the prime, and 1.

(And I know what you meant. I just couldn't resist)

Re:a fix

[Andrewkov]

Assuming you have no backups, that could really be a problem. Everyone does keep backups, right?

I have a *GREAT* idea to make this a good thing...

[fzammett]

Twoeasy steps:

(1) Get this virus into the DMCA-supporters computers.

(2) When they are screaming that all their data is encrypted, kindly inform them that you could create a crack for it and get all their data back, but unfortunately you would run afoul of the DMCA reverse-engineering laws and therefore cannot help them.

Yes. Irony is *NOT* dead!!

Re:a fix

[Your Pal Dave]

"s/he" and "his/er" works quite well if you need to get anal about it.

And what if something has no gender and is an "it", you insensitive clod?

Clearly, to avoid offending anyone, we all must start saying "s/h/it".

A simple request

[bunratty]

Some kind soul should write a virus that holds your files hostage until Firefox is installed and is set as the default browser. Hint, hint...

Re:a fix

[Binestar]

'restore' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

You are entering the command at the wrong interface. That's not a command you use at a command prompt. It's a verbal command for your IT underling.

Re:Must be a real moron

[noidentity]

I got infected by that virus once. It printed this:

I hold files kidnap: "GPL.TXT" is one
To buy decoder mail: [e-mail]
with subject: PGPcoder 000000000032

Oh, darn...