Watch out for a sneaky blackmailing virus that encrypts your data.

Read the really important stuff at Off Base (from www.majorgeeks.com front page today---pass it on to others).

Or check out my post #8 at http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=160930 and follow the links.

A real nastie, this one. :cry Bazza

 

Thanks for the heads up BB

 

You're welcome. :major Hope more MG'ers read this thread. Bazza

 

I was especially interested by the comment that I found in a Washinton Post blog:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/06/ransomware_encrypts_victim_fil.html?nav=rss_blog

Why don't they (Kapersky) just put together distributed computing effort, like Seti'? I mean, to do it in one day's time would only take about 10,957 computers if they were all at least 2.2 Ghtz, and lots of those would be a LOT faster, and more people would join every day, until it reached critical mass and more people were leaving than joining the effort.

I'm sure LOTS of us would volunteer!

Or infect a non-necessary machine and buy the encryption key? Because unless it's working with a salt then one key should fit all, UNLESS the virus mails the salt info it used to create the encryption with, to begin with, back to a server (leaving a traceable footprint, unless it goes through an anonymizer), in which case they could customize every key required (which is how I would do it).

In fact, I'd have sent the things out 6 months ago, with latency encoded into the things, and allowed them to PROPIGATE through the internet FIRST. IF it is written so virus detectors can't see it, and it stays passive for a period of propigation, then it shouldn't be found. ANd if I were writing a virus, I would be trying to break it before releasing it into the wild! I didn't break software and URLs at Netscape for nothing, except to learn this very simple concept!

Why don't WE just put together distributed computing effort, like Seti'?
(Or more correctly, "Why doesn't Majorgeeks just...) :-D

(That gives me some [bad] ideas)


For that matter, we're lucky the bad guys haven't put together a parallel effort to hack and crack!

Gods! Someday it may take a bank of machines just to protect the data servers, on the data side of the picture!

(Those weren't them.)

The bad guys read these blogs & newsgroups, too, but I would suppose I'm not the first to consider the above. I'm gonna keep the rest of my thoughts on crimeware to myself.

Too many of my ideas come true, and not all of them have been good. I may not wear a white hat, but I'm sure not gonna go round being a think tank for the ones who wear black ones! :eek

Good ideas come from other's implementing BAD ones! Criminals will ALWAYS benefit from technology. Beating them is just too much fun to stop!


"It raineth on the just man and the unjust man, but mostly on the just man, for the unjust man hath stolen the just's umbrella!"

 

Back up often is one solution. :-D Bazza