How My Mom Got Hacked • Hacker News Board

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#11

Post by Sir_Substance » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:12 AM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #8

And that is why I have the "if you don't have backup, I won't bother to help you with your lost files" policy when friend or family come crying. I make only one exception from this rule. Cryptolocker is not the problem. The lack of reliable backup is. 15 years into the internet age, and 5 into the cloud you have no excuse.

I would genuinely rather lose all my critical data to cryptolocker than put it in the cloud. Given a choice between my data being accessible by no-one or everyone, I will pick no-one every time.

Data in the cloud /is/ available to everyone that matters.

I'd also like to remind you that it can be impractical to back up some forms of data, especially in the cloud. High definition video (weddings, funerals, holidays) is impractically large.

The problem /is/ Cryptolocker. Anyone with an ounce of practicality will take mitigating steps against it, I have no sympathy for anyone who ignores the risk, but the solution is not massive scale global data duplication, that is treating the symptoms. The solution is to dissuade criminals from this path.

Widescale international cooperation in finding these people would be a start.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#12

Post by JCole » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:20 AM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #11

venomsnake wrote: post #8

And that is why I have the "if you don't have backup, I won't bother to help you with your lost files" policy when friend or family come crying. I make only one exception from this rule. Cryptolocker is not the problem. The lack of reliable backup is. 15 years into the internet age, and 5 into the cloud you have no excuse.

I would genuinely rather lose all my critical data to cryptolocker than put it in the cloud. Given a choice between my data being accessible by no-one or everyone, I will pick no-one every time. Data in the cloud /is/ available to everyone that matters. I'd also like to remind you that it can be impractical to back up some forms of data, especially in the cloud. High definition video (weddings, funerals, holidays) is…

You don't need to backup to the cloud, have people forgotten about physical hard drives?

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#13

Post by ColinWright » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:22 AM UTC

So the title is "How My Mom Got Hacked" and the only thing it actually says about that actual title is:

    The virus is thought to infiltrate your computer
    when you click on a legitimate-looking attachment
    or through existing malware lurking on your hard
    drive, ...

So, there's really nothing about how his mom got hacked.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting article, interesting to read about the process that ensues once you've been hacked, and I've up-voted it, but I'm disappointed not to see anything about how it happened.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#14

Post by r0m4n0 » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:30 AM UTC

JCole wrote: post #12

Sir_Substance wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would genuinely rather lose all my critical data to cryptolocker than put it in the cloud. Given a choice between my data being accessible by no-one or everyone, I will pick no-one every time. Data in the cloud /is/ available to everyone that matters. I'd also like to remind you that it can be impractical to back up some forms of data, especially in the cloud. High definition video (weddings, funerals, holidays) is…

You don't need to backup to the cloud, have people forgotten about physical hard drives?

Yep, a good mitigation plan is a 2tb time capsule. All my precious cat photos are backed up on the regular, encrypted and within reach.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#15

Post by bigbugbag » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:31 AM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #8

And that is why I have the "if you don't have backup, I won't bother to help you with your lost files" policy when friend or family come crying. I make only one exception from this rule. Cryptolocker is not the problem. The lack of reliable backup is. 15 years into the internet age, and 5 into the cloud you have no excuse.

Indeed, having a recent valid backup turns the cryptolocker variety of virus quite ineffective, you only lose some time to restore vs files you can't replace.

But how is this related to the internet or the cloud in any way? Putting backups into the cloud is a terrible idea and transferring large data collection over a residential Internet connection makes little sense. Backups for home users became a possibility with the advent of cheap storage, first burners and cheap blank discs and now with large hard drives and flash media.

But the issue at hands here is that with the democratization of the personal computer most users lacks the skills to make their own backups and even among technical people it's not until we got bitten by data loss that we start to take backups seriously.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#16

Post by coda » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:42 AM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #13

So the title is "How My Mom Got Hacked" and the only thing it actually says about that actual title is: The virus is thought to infiltrate your computer when you click on a legitimate-looking attachment or through existing malware lurking on your hard drive, ... So, there's really nothing about how his mom got hacked. Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting article, interesting to read about the process that ensues o…

How her mom. Well read.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#17

Post by mdisraeli » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:52 AM UTC

mrmondo wrote: post #9

I'm surprised that no one has fingerprinted the patterns that these apps take to encrypt the files, then created an antivirus definition for them. Surely they can't be that polymorphic that no one can catch them?

Polymorphism typically referred to worms and viruses that changed their own code base as they spread. Most infections, however, happen from phishing emails either with attachments or linking to the payload. Changing the files produced so as to no longer be caught by antivirus signatures is trivial, and you can even create a unique variant for each phish.

Many legitimate programs will seem to act similarly - opening files and overwriting contents with something else. ID3 tag writers for MP3s, file type converters, batch image processing, etc. This means you can't match easily against the types of actions being taken.

Let's imagine, however, that the antivirus was still able to detect that something odd was happening. If it prompts the user, they will inevitably click 'yes run this file', because that's what they have always done. If it quarantines the file... well, you just add another few lines to the phishing email saying that the attachment is perfectly safe ("scanned by symantec" apparently...) and to go ahead and bring it back out from quarantine

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#18

Post by venomsnake » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:52 AM UTC

bigbugbag wrote: post #15

venomsnake wrote: post #8

And that is why I have the "if you don't have backup, I won't bother to help you with your lost files" policy when friend or family come crying. I make only one exception from this rule. Cryptolocker is not the problem. The lack of reliable backup is. 15 years into the internet age, and 5 into the cloud you have no excuse.

Indeed, having a recent valid backup turns the cryptolocker variety of virus quite ineffective, you only lose some time to restore vs files you can't replace. But how is this related to the internet or the cloud in any way? Putting backups into the cloud is a terrible idea and transferring large data collection over a residential Internet connection makes little sense. Backups for home users became a possibility with…

I did not say put it in the cloud. Although it is totally possible to create backup solution that is undecryptable by the cloud hosting provider.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#19

Post by venomsnake » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:59 AM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #11

venomsnake wrote: post #8

And that is why I have the "if you don't have backup, I won't bother to help you with your lost files" policy when friend or family come crying. I make only one exception from this rule. Cryptolocker is not the problem. The lack of reliable backup is. 15 years into the internet age, and 5 into the cloud you have no excuse.

I would genuinely rather lose all my critical data to cryptolocker than put it in the cloud. Given a choice between my data being accessible by no-one or everyone, I will pick no-one every time. Data in the cloud /is/ available to everyone that matters. I'd also like to remind you that it can be impractical to back up some forms of data, especially in the cloud. High definition video (weddings, funerals, holidays) is…

Here is a good interview question:

Design a simple system that uses amazon as backend to store encrypted data and the keys never leave your control.

There were 4TB drives at 100-sh bucks for big things.

The problem is not Cryptolocker because there will ALWAYS be malware that targets the data itself. And some people will do it just for fun.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#20

Post by ExpiredLink » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 12:00 PM UTC

> “Whoever these yahoos are, they have some little shred of humanity.”

Not really. Their "business model" is extremely restricted. 99.99 of their victims cannot handle the Bitcoin thingy.