Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage'

[Xavier]

This story is very interesting. I never knew we would get to this. The funny thing is that some people may actually pay the ransom rather than suffer the frustration...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/internet_ransom

[bandido1]

Re: Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage'

OMG!!!

[Rebycman]

Re: Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage'

Heh, ya I saw this story this morning on CNN. Its amazing what some people will do out here on the world wide web. The net has made great strides to create a global community but as in life it only takes a few bad apples to cause problems for everybody else. The net has no sense of morals, values, or right & wrong...its just a layer of code between peoples be they good or bad, the net is indifferent.

In the not too distant past hackers used IRC zombies to attack web sites, (favorite target were the online casino's) either pay up or they will knock your servers offline by brute force. By forcing the casino sites offline they remove their ability to earn a buck so many of these sites would pay the meager amount asked just to make them go away. (Its foolish really to pay them any money, it just makes them do it more/again).

Before IRC zombies it was mostly the script kiddies creating simple scripts to do stupid things like format c: which do nothing other than annoy the average end user. There was no money in this so they moved onto bigger and better things. Just like the internet, the scams and scammers evolve to create more problems for us all to deal with (just hit send on your email client for more details - lol).

Really its not that hard to lock down a server or at the very least do backups of mission critical data. Its lazy server admins that fall victim to this kind of attack.

Really its not much different from the average end user keeping his/her computer up to date. There is a reason we geeks constantly remind users to keep updating their drivers, OS, and apps.

So with that in mind, go run windows update, check your firewalls, and take control of your PC's! Don't become the next sucker...

Regards,

-Reby

[grandma2]

Re: Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage'

they did something similar to R+