Cryptolocker ransomware has infected about 250,000 PCs

[colonel_mortis]

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25506020
 
Cryptolocker, the virus which encrypts your hard drive and demands a payment to get the encryption key, is now believed to have infected about 250,000 PCs, and the article says that

of those affected, "a minimum of 0.4%, and very likely many times that" had agreed to the ransom demand,

The ransom demand is 0.5 bitcoins (wikipedia), so the criminals have made a lot of money from this (500 BTC if 0.4% of 250,000 paid!).

Edited December 24, 2013 by colonel_mortis

[Mitrailleuse]

people actually paid?

[colonel_mortis]

people actually paid?

Apparently so. I guess if you have important work documents (or even your whole business network is infected), you don't really have a choice.

 0.4% isn't a very high proportion though, and you are under a lot of pressure (3 days to pay or you lose it forever).

[MatheusSanzo]

Where can I download Cryptolocker? I want to run this in my virtual lab.

If you search on www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin you can find some people asking for the files and some answers there.

[Dr3nz4r]

sounds funny, if someone has like 20kb/s uplaod, and it wants to upload the whole HDD...

[FlakeyBanana]

Cryptolocker? You mean a crypted windows locker aka ransomeware

[Jeroen1322]

He's a dick.. but a smart dick ;p 

[Snickerzz]

Been searching to download Cryptolocker for an hour now without success so I've given up now.

just turn off your anti malware and firewall and go watch some porn

[brownninja97]

I hope a solution has been found or will be found, i have no idea how to get rid of it on peoples computers at the moment and it sucks to just have to turn away people.

[miyabwah]

Can't believe they paid.

[coen113]

just turn off your anti malware and firewall and go watch some porn

even better, pirate porn without antivirus

[LOLPhilips]

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25506020

 

Cryptolocker, the virus which encrypts your hard drive and demands a payment to get the encryption key, is now believed to have infected about 250,000 PCs, and the article says that

The ransom demand is 0.5 bitcoins (wikipedia), so the criminals have made a lot of money from this (50,000 BTC if 0.4% of 250,000 paid!).

 

0.4% percent of 250,000 people is only a 1000 people right ?? So if they all paid 0.5 BTC wouldn't that "only" amount to 500BTC

[colonel_mortis]

0.4% percent of 250,000 people is only a 1000 people right ?? So if they all paid 0.5 BTC wouldn't that "only" amount to 500BTC

Oh yeah oops. I rushed it on the windows calculator, and forgot it was 0.4% and not just a multiplier. Fixed now.

[Alfie_Assassin]

What makes me wonder is how larger company's get this, I guess its down to the user doing something they should not be doing on their work computer.

[colonel_mortis]

What makes me wonder is how larger company's get this, I guess its down to the user doing something they should not be doing on their work computer.

It's spread through emails apparently, and all it takes is for one person to click the link and the network gets infected and encrypted.

[mgsstar]

Been searching to download Cryptolocker for an hour without success so I've given up now.

Its funny how you search for it while people just get them without searching it lol

 

This teaches the people a lesson to either get a firewall/antivirus to prevent this and/or to use common sense or just use linux.

[Ddm5]

just turn off your anti malware and firewall and go watch some porn

Porn is actually one of the lowest sources in this day and age for the source of Malware, excluding specific targets such as Celebrities / "Leaked" videos. Too many free porn sites for that source to be viable for the distribution of malware.

[KakaoDj]

Actually, Symatec estimated that about 3% paid, so much more than previously stated  

[tom564]

TBH the cost was reasonable compared to what you would have to pay someone to restore from backups in some cases and compared to losing business data it is a bargain.  

[KakaoDj]

They have made quite a lot 

From wikipedia:

 

In December 2013, ZDNet traced four Bitcoin addresses posted by users who had been infected by CryptoLocker, in an attempt to gauge the operators' earnings. The four addresses showed movement of 41,928 BTC between October 15 and December 18, a value of about $27,000,000 USD per the exchange rate at that point in time