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How My Mom Got Hacked

nytimes.com

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Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#21

Post by tezza »

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'm sorry, but I do exactly what you say is impossible.

  > Putting backups into the cloud is a terrible idea
  > and transferring large data collection over a
  > residential Internet connection makes little sense.
I work with video, music and large images. So my home backup is 3.6 TB. I now use CrashPlan: a cloud backup, who have no problem with the capacity. It took ~ 6 months to store everything, but now it just sends the deltas quietly behind the scenes.

I lost a 1TB drive the other day, and the restore worked well after a bit of jiggerypokery.

Previously I used an LTO2 tape system involving Bacula, a VMWare linux instance and a lot of changing tapes. Cloud backup is so much better

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#22

Post by binaryanomaly »

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 my mom caught a virus that encrypted her personal files - would be a more appropriate title imho.

But anyway after reading the article it's clear what happened. Evil mail attachement --> infection.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#24

Post by joosters »

gringe wrote: post #2

> Welcome to the new ransomware economy, where hackers have a reputation to consider. It's not new for organized crime to consider its reputation. In fact you could argue that organized crime exists solely based on its reputation, and I would certainly argue that for CryptoWall. If nobody trusted that paying them would work, they would lose virtually all reason to do what they do. I'm not going to defend digital exto…

I don't see any complications or deep thinking required before pointing fingers. It's the criminals who are to blame.

No amount of educating end users will magically fix these kind of attacks, whether or not people write articles about their ransom payments.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#25

Post by Omniusaspirer »

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.

What you should have mentioned is how many years since the start of the personal computer.

People simply cannot be computer-illiterate in the modern world without eventually being screwed. Nearly every computer ignorant person I know has a virus/spyware/adware ridden PC sitting at home while they're just waiting to find a "computer guy" who can fix it.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#26

Post by HackinOut »

logn wrote: post #5
0x0 wrote: post #4

Could the "one file free decrypt preview" feature be used to sniff out the crypto key required to decrypt all the other files? Or does the virus need to check in with the backend for every single file for unique keys?

> does the virus need to check in with the backend for every single file for unique keys? As it's based on CryptoLocker, all the files would be encrypted with the same key. After CryptoLocker was busted by law enforcement, "Fox-IT and fellow firm FireEye introduced an online service which allows infected users to retrieve their private key by uploading a sample file, and then receive a decryption tool" ( https://en.w…

I wouldn't be so sure this would help: CryptoLocker was using symmetric encryption (AES) for the files while CryptoWall apparently solely use RSA (which creates problems for the pirate, like slow encryption, thus encrypting only small files (.jpeg, .doc...)?). Only the public key seems to be downloaded when the malware installs. (http://stopmalvertising.com/malware-reports/cryptowall-behin...)

If this is the case, I would surprised if they would download the private key for the one free decrypt feature. If they encrypt only small files they might do the decryption on the remote C&C Server?

It's worth investigating anyway.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#27

Post by gergo_v »

dtech wrote: post #6
BorisMelnik wrote: post #3

This may sound cliche, but ransomeware truly is plaguing the nation. 3 "phone room" busts here where I live in the last month or so, all of which were the "tech support" hot lines that you called into after you've paid the ransom to "fix your PC." sure, there are many different levels of extortion. Some outfits are very upfront i.e. "your PC has been locked..." others are much more subtle and appear to come across as…

What exactly is a phone room and how will it help stop ransomware?

A phone room or boiler room operation will not stop ransomware - in fact quite often it's another sort of scam in itself.

Here's a short article explaining the process and the Verge covered the subject in length: http://ipensatori.com/2014/05/27/tech-support-scams-what-lie...

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/10/2984893/scamworld-get-rich...

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#28

Post by gringe »

joosters wrote: post #24
gringe wrote: post #2

> Welcome to the new ransomware economy, where hackers have a reputation to consider. It's not new for organized crime to consider its reputation. In fact you could argue that organized crime exists solely based on its reputation, and I would certainly argue that for CryptoWall. If nobody trusted that paying them would work, they would lose virtually all reason to do what they do. I'm not going to defend digital exto…

I don't see any complications or deep thinking required before pointing fingers. It's the criminals who are to blame. No amount of educating end users will magically fix these kind of attacks, whether or not people write articles about their ransom payments.

I beg to disagree. If you effectively made everyone realize that not paying utterly destroys the extortionist's business model, that does "magically fix these kinds of attacks" overnight. Not that I'm saying educating people about this is practical or even possible.

One thing that I think is destructive though is "blaming the criminals", since a) we don't even know who they are, b) their business model depends entirely on them being promoted as a legitimate threat you can pay to fix, and c) blaming them distracts from finding a real solution.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#29

Post by ColinWright »

coda wrote: post #16
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.

Thank you. I read the article in some detail, I didn't read the author's name. The author's gender is not evident from the text of the item.

For what it's worth, I found your comment somewhat snarky.

Re: How My Mom Got Hacked

#30

Post by Kiro »

binaryanomaly wrote: post #22
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 my mom caught a virus that encrypted her personal files - would be a more appropriate title imho. But anyway after reading the article it's clear what happened. Evil mail attachement --> infection.

> How my mom caught a virus that encrypted her personal files

Just as bad if you ask me. There's still nothing about how she caught it.

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