Bitcoin Forum

There are stories about hackers that will hack your computer, steal your information, and then demand $500 or something...paid in Bitcoin.

We all know why Bitcoin would be use, the lack of trace-ability.

But sometimes the authorities are just suggesting to pay the ransom because they have no way to track the money or the person via the payment.

Isn't this worrisome? Have you heard of this in your area?

There isn't much the authorities can do in cases like that..

People are hypocrites. On one hand they argue that Bitcoin is not anonymous, on the other hand they all scream once someone asks for a random to be paid in Bitcoin. Make up your mind, it is either traceable or it isn't. It can't be both. Spoiler: It is traceable.
Not if you have developed common sense, otherwise yes. Unless you're a complete tool security (like many) nothing is going to happen to you.

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Bitcoin is being used for elicit means, so what? Compared to the use of cash for elicit means it is very tiny amount. Cash is being massively used for ransom, drugs, financing terrorism and whatnot. People need to calm down, especially the media.

NSA anyone? Oh wait, I thought it was for the good of the citizens.  ::)

I agree. It's not Bitcoin fault, although in the mind of not informed people it will get bad press.

At the very worse, authorities will have to rely on other clues to catch the criminals. Not all kidnappers are caught due to money being traced (I guess)

What complete idiots would demand that ransom money gets sent to their <swiss bank account number> ?
A bitcoin address is comparable.  To ask for a ransom to be sent to it is asking for it.

If any cleptomaniacs have more than 5 BTC to buy from me the technical advice of something more suitable for ransom transactions, then pm me.

They can demand to be paid with gold? Dollars? Drugs? Doing criminal act like killing people? So the authority then will suggest to kill the target because they have no way to track anything?
Crazy world full of

It's called ransomware and it's like a virus but instead of ruining your files and operating system it encrypts them all and demands ransom to let the users have the control of their files back. But instead of learning to take back-ups of their important files, people opt to blame others for their own carelessness, if instead of ransomware it was just a plain virus who ruins all the files, who would they blame then?

The hackers and viruses are getting advanced more and more and you can't come online without taking precautions. Bitcoin is not to be blamed here, it's a new technology and like every invention, there are people who will find ways to misuse it.

I can't tell if you're implying that I don't have any common sense or if you're calling me a complete tool or if you're just speaking generally.

How is any bitcoin transaction traceable - enlighten us!

And as a Staff Member, you of all people shouldn't be insulting others on this Forum...(if that's what you're doing). We're just talking, no need to get heated.

Looking forward to your explanation of any transaction is traceable. Thanks!

If you use it for ransom, and the authorities subpoena 3rd parties to reveal your data, or they track the coins on the Blockchain or they trace it to the IP address with the nearest nodes accessed, you could be found. They can even subpoena services like mixers and gambling operations to trace those coins.

You would be better off, using cash drops.  ::)

I am seeing good sight regarding price of bitcoin. If more and more criminal start to demand ransom via bitcoin than people who even don't know about bitcoin will start to buy bitcoin which ultimately increases the demand and price will start to skyrocket as ranson money usually is bigger amount. Although with this i am not trying to support criminal activity.

I was expirienced this virus from hackers heres my link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1250394.0
He trying to hack my electrum files .
The virus that i got is ransomeware virus that you need to pay $500 for files he lock.
Anyone can you help me there i want get back my files without paying him...

That's good to know. Sounds like the local stories I'm hearing about police saying "just pay it" is because the police here probably don't know how to trace it OR the effort to trace it costs more than the $300-500 in ransom.

Anyway, has anyone seen this thread yet? -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1241607.0

Definitely not trying to insult you nor anyone directly. I'd never insult someone asking questions. Anyhow let's compare Bitcoin to cash. Let's say we have 2 users that want to transact money. Person A gives person B 100$. In case that person B wants to be bad and ask for the payment again, person A can't prove that he has paid him. In comparison to this, we have the blockchain (a public, permanent ledger). These Bitcoins have to come from somewhere and have to go somewhere. One could argue that a mixer is helpful, but with a competent person and analysis they get beaten. There's also this problem of who is Person A behind address X? It comes down to the actual skill of that person. If they use some service (e.g. exchange like Coinbase), they could be caught easily (especially if the government is getting information).

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Tl;dr: If you want to be 99% sure that one can't trace you, you have to convert to an anonymous coin e.g. Monero to "clean" your coins (one must also consider the sum, if you get xxx$ through elicit means, then don't convert everything at once from Monero to Bitcoin). This is why we call Bitcoin pseudo-anonymous (use Google for exact examples).

Nothing surprising. I've been experiencing a lot of port scans recently, but they all get blocked by my software.

Some virus scanners now have a lot of the unlock keys loaded into them. Try to find one of these virus scanners and see if it can unlock this specific case.

Might be impossible if he altered the keys though.

I've already installed avg anti virus but some of my files still gone.
All exe files are gone except rar files and folder not all folders and other extension .
I saw few files recovered by anti malware but the extesion is sample.exe.Locked
I was try to remove the locked extension but the file didnt work...
can you suggest other anti virus to unlock all my files?

already a thing called ransomware...also many criminals now threatening for bitcoin rather than cash.

do a back up problem solved, actually i don't even need one, i can secure erase at any time, nothing vital on my desktop

the only problem would be re-installing everything, which is boring and a bit time consuming(2 hours in my case)

agree...setup daily backups on your computer and you should be ok. Ransomeware? no problem, wipe and place backup, report the threat to appropriate places.

Around 2 months ago my laptop was also infected by malware. Whenever i open my laptop only one page opened saying my laptop is seized by US government or something and said i have to send 100$ to some bitcoin address. But later i fixed it by formating as i don't have any important files in that laptop. On past they used to use liberty and perfect nowadays criminal,hackers are shifting towards bitcoin.

I already fix my computer done by this link http://visihow.com/Show_Hidden_Files_Using_Command_Prompt
He just hide all my files The hacker is wise.. LOL.
Now im still scan all my files to remove all viruses and to do not repeat this problem again..
Mcaffee anti virus i think is the one giving me virus on my computer... so i decided to uninstall the software and install avg as my anti virus...
Now all my files are ok... And all my application works. http://i63.tinypic.com/2m27w43.jpg
Thanks for my friends out there and all bitcoin members...
I can not fix it with my self if you all is nothing maybe my computer still suffer about ransom virus...

Every serious computer user should have all of their files backed up to the external drive. They are cheap, $50 for 1T.

Evefy serious user should know how to keep their computer almost malware free, especially a crypto user. Combination of a good anti virus, malwarebytes, and a hitman pro scanner should do a job quite well.

Never share publicly how many bitcoins do you have. This will make you more hacker targeted!

If you respect the above then you don't care about these ransome viruses!

It is true. The program is called ransomare and block your computer asking money in order to have the key which unlock the computer. If you don't do that the impostor ask or do something else with the computer to send away it the program destroy everything.

I had hearing nothing such happen in my city or my country (from the news given at TV) but it is not strange that someday happen even here. The fraud don't have limits and boundaries. If will happen and you don't have backup in a external hard drive of all your important data, you are seriously in trouble. I have all my data in an external drive and those in my computer with which work everyday update the previous ones every week.

then I have two protectors of my computer: Kaspersky Internet Security and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. Both those are a good protection from most of the bad external things that can happen to one computer.

they pull in 325 million a year and growing.. they drive the bitcoin economy.

bitcoin is for criminals, frausters and greedy clowns looking to make a buck..
not the public to be used as a... "currency"

backups make little difference..

You don't have to save all the information on your PC (especially not passwords). Either take a back up or save it on hard disks that are password protected else use an antivirus that protects your files. The hackers try to make you visit sites that are phishing websites but antiviruses easily detect these attacks.

Just don't pay and throw away your HDD or secure erase/factory reset it. Even when it has important data on it. There is no way to know the guys that are demanding the ransom will seriously unlock your pc or make a second attemt to extort you.

Ransom is no doubt a great issue with bitcoins. It is a gruesome attack to the pride and purity of bitcoins. Hackers sitting there would hack your bitcoins wallet, steal all the money and demand double money of it in return.. This is really shit and frustrating. And, the worse thing happens when authorities even refuse to take any action and instead say to pay the ransom.
These kind of incidents have though not happened in my locality, but I do hear about all these type of cases now and then.
An official court for crimes related to bitcoins is really missed now.

so naive LOL

how? i can just secure erase and install everything again, no virus can go against this, unless we are talking about bios virus, in that case i will change my entire motherboard and again, this time no virus can even do anything

well there are those router virus, but you know again what i can do...

You know why Symantec / Norton always tells people to delete Windows restore points as step one since the early 2000's ?
I know i read the Symantec knowledge base articles.
They also tell guys to disable system restore too.. know why ?

And no your crappy little AV programs won't do squat.
They sell a false sense of security to noobs.

All of you commenting are clueless and might get nailed.
I highly advise going and doing some research on this stuff.
I can tell many of you have no clue what a Ransomware virus is.
If you read even one single News story you would know a lot of infections come from email attachments.

Also back up's are meaningless and only *help*
They are not fool proof.

Smarter guys would recommend a read-only medium too.

All it takes is the virus writer to enumerate your portable devices etc
and then have the malware infect it when it's attached.. trivial.

they can also time bomb you.. so malware would stay dormant until later (after you already made back ups)

they are far smarter than kids who download AV programs LOL
you think they can't bypass Kaspersky or Norton or....
they can do it on demand when ever they want as much as they want.

edit:
cocky ?
try this scenario on for size..
Android + Stagefright
What do carriers tell people to do ?
Turn off auto SMS downloading (it's on by default)
Ever plug a phone into a PC ?

I don;t think most people fathom the dangers that are out there.
It's more a matter if they get luck.
It's not your awesome security.. it's you just got lucky LOL

So do you wish to pay ransom amount if your PC is hacked? I've seen people saving their passwords in Gmail and then their email account gets hacked and they lose all their information. They are again so naive.

like some of stated before its super cheap to get a back up tb or 2 and just back up anything sensitive so if this happens you just wipe it.  Luckily the computers I have had issues on I didnt have anything important on. I basically have my porn laptop that is only for sketchy use like porn or downloading movies lol. I then have another computer I do absolutely nothing on but safe activity/work.