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Crypto Locker virus hijacks your computer, makes you pay $300 ransom:

Discussion in 'Computers & Technology Forum' started by Revmitchell, Dec 12, 2013.

  1. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    The Crypto Locker virus is considered to be a historically devastating virus because it holds your computer hostage until you pay a ransom. The Crypto Locker virus is easy to get and almost impossible to get rid of, unless you pay a ransom of up to $700. “The CryptoLocker Virus - which not only has the potential to destroy a computer hard drive, but holds the computer owners data ransom -infects computers through a legitimate-looking email, usually from a reputable company like FedEx or UPS,” reported University Herald on Oct. 26, 2013.


    http://www.examiner.com/article/cry...-computer-makes-you-pay-300-ransom-what-to-do
     
  2. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    The wife picked one up a couple months ago. There are ways to rid yourself of some varieties. The net has a lot of fixes. My wife's variety seemed to have read about the same fixes I read about since the fixes did not work and we ultimately had to restore. Fortunately we are back up freaks and it was only the time that we lost.

    We created another administrator account on all of our computers named rescue. Since the virus only infects (so far anyway) the account you normally log in with if you log in on another account you can seek to do repairs/fixes to the other.

    Most of the virus I read about stick a small file in your startup directory and when the computer starts the virus begins. If you can go to that start directory and delete it then you can run a drive scan and it will rid the drive of anything else it might find.

    Some evil nasty people out there in this world.
     
  3. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    That's good information to know. I'll keep that in mind next time.


    This must be why the anti-virus companies have you create a boot disk out of a flash drive or CD, because it bypasses the start up files on your C:\ drive and boots from the anti-virus boot disk instead.

    Here's a trick I've learned. Immediately after you've discovered an infection do a search of all your drives (but typically the C:\ drive) looking for any executable files that were created in the past 24 hours or so. Search for:

    *.exe

    and set the custom search by date to a 2 day span or so.

    If you find any executable files write down the name and the folder where it was found. Then do your virus and malware removal regimen. Afterwards, check to see if this executable file is still on your hard drive. If it is delete it.


    There ought to be mandatory minimum sentences for these people, at least 5 years. The loss of productivity they cause every day must be enormous. Just take the time you spent on getting rid of this virus and multiply it by, say, 250,000 other people, then multiply that by 365 days a year. Such a waste of time being spent to rid our computers of these things.
     
  4. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    your .exe search is a great idea!!

    My wife had a bit of a stroke among many other issues a year ago and gets frustrated very easily. The computer mess really put her in a tizzy trying to get things back to normal. I did the major stuff but even the restore of data was a frustration for her.

    It came with an email addy from a good friend, she of course opened the email and when she saw it wasn't from her she assumed it was spam. Next time she rebooted, bingo.
     
  5. Don

    Don Well-Known Member
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    From what I've read, the nasty part about Cryptolocker is that you'll need the encryption key to decrypt any of your files that it's locked down. So you can get rid of it, but you may not be able to get your data back.

    Another good reason to make back-ups, and keep them separate.
     
  6. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Yea I have been thinking about getting an external hard drive for that reason.
     
  7. Sapper Woody

    Sapper Woody Well-Known Member

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    A virus I never got rid of on an old computer was a harmless but hilarious version of "Magister B". The only thing it did was make my desktop icons literally run away from the mouse! I loved it. It was hilarious to see people trying to open a program on my computer.
     
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