Book Board Chat

A friend asked me to post this:

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We got this this morning from our computer person, who is very reliable. Thought my friends should be warned.

"Over the past few weeks, a new ransom-ware infection has popped up called Cryptolocker. This infection is typically delivered by the following methods:

1. This infection was originally sent to company email addresses that pretend to be customer support related issues from Fedex, UPS, DHL, Xerox etc. These emails would contain an attachment that when opened would infect the computer.

2. Currently dropped by Zbot infections disguised as PDF attachments

3. Via exploit kits located on hacked web sites that exploit vulnerabilities on your computer to install the infection.

4. Through Trojans that pretend to be programs that are required to view online videos. These are typically encountered through Porn sites.

Once this attack is launched, the infection begins encrypting all user generated documents on your computer and attaches to any network shares on your PC and encrypts those files as well.

The only known method of recovery at this time is to pay the ransom of anywhere from $100 - $500 to receive the decryption key. This has NOT worked in all cases. Typically, you have 72 hours to pay after which time the unique decryption key is deleted.

Please do not open any email attachments unless you are 100% sure they are legitimate.. Especially if they claim to come from FedEx, UPS, DHL, Xerox, etc

I can not stress enough how damaging this infection may become. I have had 3 computers belonging to clients who have lost all of their documents because of this attack because they were fooled into opening an email attachment, thus granting the infection entry."

Again, THIS IS NOT A JOKE. The computer person who sent this on to us is highly reputable and trust-worthy. Feel free to pass it on to friends and family, you may save them $500 and a lot of problems.