"Pay up....or else"

Virus', Denial of Service attacks, Spyware, Malware and now RansomWare. Things are definitely getting out of hand in the virtual world that is the Internet.

It seems that a new sort of malware is on the loose. By opening the wrong attachment or visiting the wrong site it could cost you some of your hard earned cash -- or else.
A malevolent executable is installed on your system and a window will pop up with a "ransom note".....in a recent case, the ransom note threatens to erase one file from your hard-drive every thirty minutes until a ransom is paid. This is, I find, one of the most incredible and blatant abuses of the internet that I have ever seen. Besides child porn (and frankly all porn), this has to be stopped and the offenders arrested and punished as quickly as possible. This is extortion!

That's why you back up everything you don't want to lose. I have never come across that kind of virus before but if I did I could recover anything of importance because I make backups of anything I don't want to lose.

Whenever you recieve these popups talking about spyware problems, and clicking Yes will fix your problem. Always go up to the X in the right hand corner, as clicking No will usually have the same effect as Yes.

Remember its better to be safe than sorry.

If the popup is giving you a direct link to fix your problem, 99.9% of the time this is a hoax.

Spyaxe, Spysheriff, Spyquake, Winfixer, Winantivirus these are all a few examples of popups you may see explaining that your system is in need of protection. Some of these will offer you a great service at a low cost. Well it may be a low cost but you are recieving no support, and putting yourself in a worse position than in the first place.

If you click the link in my signature, I deal with alot of these problems in regards to the virus and spyware. I work in a Microsoft office part-time and provide support with these exact problems. Take a few moments and read through the thread, you'll find alot of help to fix this.

Password cracked for the "Archiveus" virus/ransomware: news.bbc.co.uk...

The 30-digit password locking the files is "mf2lro8sw03ufvnsq034jfowr18f3cszc20vmw". Using the password should restore all the hijacked files.

Ransom ware? thats a new one to me thanks for the heads up.