Bitcoin Forum

...and lo and behold there is a late-60s lady moping around the RoboCoin.  I was with my Dad (he wanted to learn how to buy BTC)--I start putting 20s in the machine and he starts talking to the older lady.  After I finished with the ATM, my dad says "Peter, maybe you can help this women."

She tells me that she put money in the machine but never got any bitcoins out.

I asked her if she used her phone and she says "no I don't have a 'smart phone,' the machine just gave me this receipt" as she hands me the paper.

I look at the receipt and can immediately see that it is her private key, so I tell her that those are her bitcoins and she needs to load them onto her computer if she wants to spend them.  

She says, "you mean my bitcoins are in this piece of paper?"

Uh oh.....so by now I'm thinking that she really shouldn't be investing in bitcoins without some help from her son or grandson.  I ask "so, are you investing in bitcoins?"

And she says, "I don't even know what bitcoins are but my computer says I have to give it one to get my files back."

and then she gasps:

"and I've been trying for days to buy one!"


Well, I tried my best to help her, but I have my doubts.

Cryptolocker strikes again

there is a very well known virus that locks your computer and they creaters demand 250e payment in ukash or bitcoin, which would be around 1BTC right now.

go help the old lady !!!

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker it's the worst!!!

Oh I tried to help her!  Even offered to look at her computer!

tell her to put that piece of paper into a safe place.

*sigh* did you look at her computer?

did you offer to have her send the hackers payment address to you, so you could handle the transaction for her? did you offer to inform her next of kin in a more technical terms what was happening?

damni wish you had a way to contact he :(

Oh my god.... that's horrible a new type of crime: Kidnapping Files! nd releasing them after payment in BTC...

Poor old lady...

lol what a bs madeup story

funny none the less

She was pretty flustered and said that it was actually her work computer, so I don't think she could take me there to see it.  I told her that her bitcoins were on the paper, and that she had to keep the code hidden and safe.  I gave her contact information for both the Bitcoiniacs (the owners of the machine) and the Bitcoin Co-op in Vancouver.  Hopefully this was enough.  

But it was really tough for me.  I wish I could have done more.  And then she says that she "paid $60" and I'm thinking "well that's not enough for 1 bitcoin."  I just couldn't break it to her that it would likely cost a lot more than $60 to get her files back.  

This general theme is a SERIOUS problem.  I sell bitcoins to people on localbitcoins.com.  Most of the time, these people do not really know how to handle their bitcoins.  I spend 2 hours with all of them.  I started telling them to come into the sale with electrum downloaded so I can show them how to back up their wallets.  And I end up explaining what a hash is.

It is our duty as people who stand to get very rich off this to help these people.  This is for two reasons, one selfish and one unselfish.  

1)  if we do not quickly figure out how to make bitcoin idiot proof, we are going to run into problems with the media

2) it isn't very nice of us to stand by and watch someone fuck up their coins (op not saying you did. Just incensed rhetoric). It truly feel obligated to help them.  Why?  Because I know bitcoin took effort - it  was pretty time consuming for me to unravel all the information when I adopted it.  I am a fucking physicist by trade.  I'm by no means insulting the general population... the fact is people like us have a clear advantage in handling this money which is distinct from fiat money.  

I love bitcoin because of equality.  I don't want to see people lose money because they are lacking in internet/computer/mathematics/problem solving competence that isnt related to earnings, wealth, and well...money.

This is especially true for the elderly.  It's straight up NOT FAIR to expect them to use bitcoin the way it works now.  This story struck a nerve because I imagined somebody taking advantage of my grandmother or even mother and father.  We have a duty, really.  

Please help others with bitcoin.  

did crypto locker exist before this? surely the people are traceable? Why Bitcoin? Do you think it's sabotage related from higher forces.

This is the well-known cryptolocker virus:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker

I never thought I'd meet a victim, but there she was: about 5' 3", short grey hair, and looking very overwhelmed.  I hope by now she's tried to contact Mitchell Demeter from Bitcoiniacs (owners of the machine) or the guys in the BitCoin Co-op to try to get some more help.  

What I thought was interesting was that a person who had no idea about bitcoin a few days ago, somehow found the ATM, and then just drove on down to Waves to "buy one" without ever realizing the novelty of what they were doing.  

I completely agree that it is our duty to help people--especially the elderly.  I truly tried my best and, like I said, even offered to come look at her computer.  At least she has contact info now for the Bitcoin Co-op and Bitcoiniacs (owner of the ATM). 

It's funny: I was debating whether to post this story in fear that I would look insensitive.  I hope I didn't come across that way.  But I must admit that bitcoin seemed a bit more "real" to me after this experience (unfortunately, in a way the hurt someone) but real nonetheless.

I had a similar thing with a local meet, i sold the guy 1 bitcoin, then afterwards he told me it was to pay a hacker, he himself new nothing about bitcoin he had just been told that is what the hacker accepted.

I asked if he was in trouble of any kind and he said no it was personal and it was left at that..... i guess some people just see it as another form of sending money like western union, paypal or ukash.

Thank God she didn't loose her entire house to some banksters

Its amazing how bad security is on todays operating systems. How can we possible prevent stuff like this from happening?

If this is true then that is so sad! god humanity makes me sick sometimes

you did your best. she is old enough and can get help from a computer expert or someone else.

Given the rampant "success" of Cryptolocker, I'm sure we'll see many copycats. Hackers now have serious financial incentive to break into people's systems.

Someone was asking on reddit today whether Bitcoin would force people to take security seriously. Maybe, but Cryptolocker and others like it will really force people to (or pay up). It will probably force a great many people to learn how to buy bitcoins as well, however tragic a method it may be (in truth it is likely to be doing them a favor in a perverse way, as they are more likely to keep some for themselves...it could be what gives them that final push off the fence).

Revolution happens in the strangest ways.

There is a 0% chance that you can recover any files from her PC without paying - the people that code these viruses do know their stuff and crypto.

Even if you pay, there is a chance that you won't get any decryption key. After all, customer service is not exactly what these guys are up to, as most of their customers don't want to deal with them in the future again.

You help her best by getting her a backup software, reformatting the PC and showing her how to do backups in the future. If you want to, you can try to pay the criminals instead, though I have my doubts that it'll work. Once Bitcoin ATMs become more widespread, these kinds of "data kidnapping" will also spread out, they already accept other digital payments like paysafecard for quite some time now.

Here's my question. Does the trojan securely wipe and delete the original files? Or can they be "undeleted" if the drive was not full? Although I think the bad guys would have thought of securely erasing the original files after they have been encrypted so the ransom must be paid.

How did you not realise and tell her that its a virus?!?!?  ???

The fact that bitcoins is still hard to use for the average person probably saved her some money. If the ransom was in dollars, the money would be lost already, and the kidnapper would be asking for more as we speak.

Word on the street is that the dudes keep their word for better or worst. You pay up on time, your files get decrypted. You pay late by 1 minute or don't pay at all and you're screwed, it just uninstalls itself and leaves you with a bunch of encrypted files.

They likely encrypt in place, so unless your HDD is less than 50% full and ALL writes are only in completely new sectors, you will loose data. Also they have all the time in the world to slowly encrypt (transparently) your files, then, as soon as the task is done, switch to ransom mode by sending off the key(s) and only displaying the splash page.

I also think that they will likely give back the keys (even though that might cause them some trouble since they need another interaction with the victim) - after all they can re-infect a few months later and get ANOTHER payment, now even from victims that know the process of how to get BTC and pay them.

AFAIK, Cryptolocker offers the choice of dollars too (in the form of a MoneyPak) so she could have just gone down to the Walmart and gotten a card.

She's a possible victim of Cryptolocker?
I wonder why people invest/buy something, without educating themselves first.

Thanks Zanglebert.  I was waiting for someone to say this--it was the conclusion my father and I came to as we drove home from the ATM.

In a perverse way--and so long as viruses like CryptoLocker stay 'honest' and unlock your files when you pay up--they give people a lesson they won't forget in the importance of computer security *and* they force them to discover this great new thing called bitcoin.  I don't want to understate the frustration and pain this virus has caused, but the old saying "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" certainly applies here.  


She already knew it was a virus.  Like you implied, it's pretty obvious that when your computer says "pay me 1 BTC or I nuke the files" that it's not Mr. Gates on the other end.  I was trying to write in an entertaining way, because explaining every reference gets tiring for both reader and writer.  


In case you didn't get that reference: Mr Gates is short for William Henry "Bill" Gates III , the co-founder and current chairman of Microsoft.  Microsoft is the company that owns the Windows Operating.  The Windows operating system is what the older lady was running when her computer told her that it wanted a bitcoin.  So when I say it wasn't "Mr. Gates on the other end" I am making a reference that obviously this is not normal Windows behaviour and is thus likely the result of something bad that has made its way into her PC.  

See what I mean about getting tiring to explain every reference?

No I strongly disagree with this. If anything it will turn them off from Bitcoin and they will always associate it with evil.

Yes, it was definitely CryptoLocker or something similar.  I will edit my original post to make this point more explicit.  

Interestingly, the older lady told me that "Russians" were responsible for the virus as though it was a statement of fact.  [I've seen no evidence to suggest where the virus originated.]

The other thing I noticed from this experience:  I could tell she viewed bitcoin as completely independent from the virus.  Bitcoins were "a thing she buys" and the virus was "Russian hackers."  She was a bit hard to get clear facts out of, but she mumbled something about.... some other way to pay.....she tried and it didn't work.....so she wanted to get a bitcoin now.  I am sure she assumed there were bitcoin ATMs all over.

Some people just should stop using computers.

Hmm, well after my experience, I now strongly disagree with this and agree with Zangelbert :)  [But before my experience with the older lady I would have agreed with you Abdussamad.]

If she comes away with a negative view of bitcoin, it will be because she couldn't figure out how to use it!  I don't know how to explain this, but I could just tell from talking with her--we talked for at least 5 minutes--that in her mind bitcoin had nothing to do with the virus, it was just a payment option.  She was frustrated by the mechanics of buying bitcoins to unlock her computer, but it her mind it was "the Russian hackers" who were evil.  

Besides the lessons she will learn about computer security, I think her take away will be that there are "these new internet coins" and "the people who use them here in Vancouver are polite and helpful."  

The Russians, those dirty bastards.
I would expect Sarah Palin to have taken care of them by now!

wow I can't believe this is happening. do you have any idea how much she has lost?

I wouldn't say 0% because at one point everyone thought DES was unbreakable, and it got cracked.  Then, the same thing with AES, and now that can be brute forced with related key impossible differential attack to reduce complexity to like 2^60.  Complexity drops to 10^4 with side channel attacks.  But yeah, right now if you open that .zip file in your e-mail, unless you can stop if before its too late...  Well good luck not paying lol.

Those people behind such viruses really make my blood boil, taking advantage of the elderly is something that really makes me angry.  It's no different to cold calling door to door scammers that deliberately target old people, convincing them their house has some serious structural damage and refusing to leave their livingroom until they sign a contract for £10,000 repairs.

They are the scum of the earth as far as I'm concerned.

Great, every layperson will associate Bitcoin as the thing they had to pay for to pay off those hackers!

Not good!

I have a feeling those people who hack peoples PCs and get pics of people undressing through their web cam without their knowledge will be using this for extortion. And those creepy guys at computer repair places who save photos off of customers computers they repair. Ugh.


What's next, Somali pirates asking for ransom payments in Bitcoin?

Just a few years away until this comparison might no longer look so unusual. :-X

Wait, so there is bitcoin ATM machines now?

This is old news. Yes.

I think it's very good that it was easier for such laypersons to buy Bitcoin than to buy a Moneypak denominated in EUR or USD, but what the fuck do I know...

I see that you helped her as much as you could at that moment.

I think you should have also adviced her to buy not just the one bitcoin that she needed for her files but also 2-3 more.

That way this whole "bitcoin-mess" at least would have brought her some profit in 1,2 or 3 years.

A Bitcoin ATM? That's awesome. Hopefully they will be expanding worldwide.

Currently only Canada I think.

Insane story.

i feel bad for old people who are ignorant to technology.. they seem to be the likeliest targets of these scammers. most of them seem like they aren't really wealthy either.

Well this story is not fiction but fact, the problem is that some are actually harmless but every time people with not enough knowledge get scared shetless when a huge message is displayed pay up to this and that btc address or else
I actually have helped one person getting the fake bitlocker of his computer and that family was very happy, and most important had to pay nothing to me either.
That does not mean these are all copy cats trying to get rich easy, i also have had a victim of the real virus.
And that ended not in a happy ending because his antivirus product had tried to remove the virus which made it lockup forever.
So do make backup copies and use different data devices to store your precious files.
I use myself 4 different types of backup media including online storage and offline storage devices.
Most of the online storage solutions do scan for virusses themself as well.
I like to add that most people with pc knowledge think they are safe with whatever os / antivirus products, but fast is we are not really that safe.
Most brute force password crackers can do millions of password is short time and have massive datafiles containing endless passwords ever used.
And thats only with simple systems containing only 2 to 4 amd videocards, there are much bigger and fast pasword crackers out there capable of doing much more.
History shows not even banks, nasa, fbi , governements police and more important security providers in every branch get hacked fairly easy by these criminals.
So do you think your simple linux of windows securty password is safe ... guess again if you say yes

Good thing you warned the lady before she wasted her money on an easy to remove virus!

Thats a sad story, but I cant stand talking to people about bitcoin that don't know what it is. Kinda funny she got to that level of awesome. WHAT WAS THE EXCHANGE RATE ON THAT ATM!? and what did the fee's look like. lol I would hate to see that.

As a newbie, the storing part is a fucking hassle.. Try tell my mother on +50 who don't even know what OS she is using, to liveboot Ubuntu and generate a bitcoin address, it ridiculously hard unless you are a tech savvy.. :@ :@ :@

What a bizarre twist that the bio-scanning ATMs I thought very creepy-intrusive end up being a powerful money laundering tool, anyway.

I'd guess the most realistic solution is to have people switch their email providers to one which is exceptionally good at blocking malicious emails. Gmail is pretty good at this, though not perfect. Alternately, it takes maybe 15 seconds for an end-user to use a DNS different than their ISP. Are there any decent public DNS servers operating on a whitelist? I hate whitelists, but in cases like the OP's old woman - sounds like the best solution, though it still wouldn't be completely safe.

Though.... I guess the more safety you add, the greater the sense of safety, which causes carelessness. Hm.

ETA: Hey - out of curiosity, does CryptoLocker shred files after moving them to an archive, or does it just do a cut & move execution? There may be a decent chance of recovery if the files weren't "deleted" deleted.

That's what I keep saying, to undelete the files. But I think the bad guys got this part covered.

Shoot just searched it up that is some nasty stuff best of luck to that old woman
Almost want to say use Linux to hack windows then download divide and separate the files by categorization and encryption
Then brute force but that is way beyond the specs for a 60 year old granny and in pro domain

Yeah... This thing's pretty terrible (in the moral and negative impact way), but I'm kind of excited to see what they can do in the next version (if they don't shred the files now, they sure will later), though I wish the ransom were much lower. $350 is pretty mean. Maybe $35/BTC.1 once they have enough to sustain themselves would be nice. Idunno - is it weird to think that? It's kind of like a physical theft done in a novel-but-effective way, like tunneling under a gold bar reserve, or using large drones to capture high-level employees at a gold mine in a net and flying them back to the Lair of Evil, demanding $25,000 from the employer for each worker. It's interesting to see how they do what they do, and what they'll do next.

Maybe just from being jaded, but it's hard to feel much sympathy for the victims, too (this is said as someone who's been on the receiving end of a lot of preventable BTC theft). Even if "old people" are statistically less likely to be PC-literate, it's still a very preventable crime. You leave your garage door open all night, one day someone steals something, and if you tell your neighbors, they'll all roll their eyes and ask why you thought it was a good idea to leave your garage door open every night. I wonder if it's irresponsible to sell PCs to people without making sure they're fully aware of the dangers and fairly basic ways to prevent them. There's really nothing you can sell with as few safety warnings for the risk as a PC. First of all, the cases never say "DO NOT EAT." At least with the batshit-insane NSA in the US, it will soon be trivial to enforce a requirement that US Internet users have some "certificate of safe use habits." Children, think of the grandparents! ramble, ramble, ramble...

I have used one in Helsinki, Finland. It will be fixed installation next week.

I hadn't heard anything about this, yet. Thanks for the information.

Hasn't anti-virus/-trojan software caught up with this yet?

There was a good article on coindesk speculating that the recent btc price rise might be due at least in part to cryptolocker.

No I doubt that this has happened, not yet at least.

Well, the ransomware software is actively developed and apparently actively funded too.

Prices rising due to a few people buying 350 USD of BTC? Just calculate how much money has been flowing into BTC recently and then how many people with a virus this would have been...

Well their is no absolutely guilt-free money the profit has to come from somewhere
That said U_U Russian hackers not cool not cool at all that's just extortion do not want to see a rise in bitcoin due to ransomware

Looking at this from an economic perspective, how did the virus-designers determine the price they would ask victims to return (decrypt) their data? How much are you willing to pay to get your data back? And how much does a descent anti-virus program, OS or backup-drive cost? Bitcoin is new technology which brings great benefits ... also to criminals. This virus will force people to think about it and make backups. So the more this virus hits the news, the better.

Unless there is some real planet-saving issue, I am against any form of blacklisting bitcoin addresses.

A practical solution to the cryptolocker virus issue:

1) Pay the ransom. Word on the street is that when the ransom is paid within the time frame the data is unencrypted
2) Back up the data to an offline storage
3) This is the most critical step Replace Microsoft Windows with GNU/Linux and propriety software with Free Libre Open Source software. This has the following advantages:
   a) It prevents any further infection from cryptolocker
   b) It allows the victim to recover the cost of the ransom over time by not paying for proprietary operating systems, proprietary software and proprietary "security" solutions
   c) It helps deter further criminal activity of this nature by removing one potential victim from an operating system that has over time been proving to be notorious for malware, viruses and the like.

Find an OS that can't get infected by it. Just like the poster above said.

If you are a gamer, the choice to go over to Linux isn't really an option. Some software is just made for Windows. :(

Gamers love to download stuff like cracks and cheats that have viruses in them....  :o

Just partition the hard drive and use Windows for gaming and Linux for everything else. Use boot select for OS selection.

I've never downloaded a single crack that contained a virus. That's an issue with the gamer.

Actually the gaming scene on GNU/Linux is changing for the better fast with Valve porting Steam to GNU/Linux. In situations where one has to use software which is only available on Microsoft Windows and there is no FLOSS alternative there are options that can at the very least mitigate the risk of infection and cost.
1) Run the software under Wine
2) Run Microsoft Windows in a virtual machine that is used only to run the software in question.
3) Run a dual boot configuration and use the Microsoft Windows side only to run the software in question.
The key is to move the main computing activity, in particular web browsing, email, and the exchange of documents away from Microsoft Windows.

If the withdrawal pains form Microsoft Windows are very high one does not have to go "cold turkey". There are ways to gradually eliminate the addiction.

So why is it HER problem? She should call IT. And management should fire IT for incompetence as they obviously didn't secure the network properly.

If she was a self employed person or a business owner then there's no reason you could not get access to the computer. So I assume she is a wage earner.

Maybe she was afraid of being fired but if her boss would fire her for something which is not her fault (as on a properly secured computer she shouldn't be able to install any software without admin privileges) he is a lousy boss and she could probably sue for wrongful termination.

Unless she is the responsible IT person for the company then she deserves to get fired anyways for not doing her job properly. ;)

You can't secure a network against human stupidity. IT most likely has no fault. People will open every attachment they get sent, especially on their work emails and if the emails look work related(a complaint, an order, etc.).

If the files were important enough to pay ransom, the hackers may want to take a look at them as well; I would not be surprised if the virus sends a copy to the hackers while unencrypting the files.

Nothing is secure against human stupidity.

At the present day, there is no mainstream antivirus that detects all variants of Cryptolocker.
‘Properly securing’ network against this particular virus includes (but not limited to):
-   Disallowing all *.exe and *.zip attachments
-   Disallowing execution from %AppData%, %LocalAppData% folders and subfolders
-   Disallowing execution from Zip, 7Zip, WinRar, WinZip, and other such utilities TEMP folders
As you can imagine this poses a few side effects, such as Adobe applications updates stopping working.
How can an IT administrator stop users from clicking on email attachments?

Keep a track of the emailing system, or even a workaround which disables attachments until an IT reviews them (not efficient, but works).

^^^ that was tinus42 that wanted to fire IT, not me.  I'm suing for libel: 1 BTC please  ;D

Please accept my sincere apologies.

Just wait for steambox :)

One of the worst things known to mankind.

If you are a gamer, you wont have critical life-and-death files or software on your hd. If you are a (small) business, relying on MS windows at this point in history is russian roulette.
.

I have been down to the bitcoin machine around 5 times now and I love the way it runs

But I have seen people struggle because they no nothing of bitcoin but they just think its a good investment.

That kinda puts btc in a bad light if people start to consider it ransom money

You're looking at it backwards. If thieves want it, must be good right?

I concur. Everyone wants it.

To combat this, an organization should start offering rewards for tips on crimes or finding lost children.

We should just do it ourselves. A few mid-20 male neckbeards on the Internet offering people money to tell them where particular children are, and we'll use Bitcoin.

Hmmmmm.... not the picture I was trying to paint.   :(

well thats a story..poor old woman...these hackers spend their time to discredit bitcoin

A woman who can't be bothered to backup her epic important things  ::)

Part of the problem, people used to backup to a tape drive and take the tapes off-line; these days most everyone is backing up to hard-drives or storage that stays connected. So, the virus encrypts your backups.

So far the reports are that the virus encrypts only drives that have a letter assigned, so if you backup to a UNC share or a partition that have no letter assigned, your backups should be safe, for now. But there is nothing that prevents a next version of the virus to get to those.

As such, not only do you need to backup, you also need to devise a way of taking the backups offline.

3-2-1

-Three copies
-On Two different media (like hard drive and DVD)
-One copy offsite (like to a friend or in the cloud)

Hear hear. With the current sizes of your typical photos and videos - you would need a helluva lot of blank writable media. But what about external HDD's? There's your offline backup, for a really cheap GB/$ ratio. Me myself would not care if someone encrypted my info, I can always make new. There are some important personal archives with message archives, some photos, tons of bookmarks, creative stuff like lyrics and art, but I'm tempted to delete that stuff myself on a daily basis.

And in the end - paying 300$ for a valuable lesson is not as bad as having your laptop completely stolen or something.

Ummm, this is simple beyond belief. 12 months ago I end ed up with a spare 1GB HDD trying a few types od drives to replace a failed HDD on a UK Sky PVR box. Rather than return it I wiped it and ordered a £15 nice blue HDD cady that came with it's own 5v power supply and a on/off switch at the back.

As I have now switched to a 128gb SSD drive with WIn7 64 I use my old 750GB vista drive as backup and mainly games storage. But I moved all the huge folders of photos, excel and word docs etc onto the new USB Caddy HDD.

Now as day to day I hardly need to look at these files and being a skinflint with a few ASIC mining rigs sucking electricity guess what, 95% of the time the power stich on that HDD caddy is "off". I only switch it on when I need it and it takes seconds for Windows to see it and give access.

Would be now sweat to make a second HDD caddy to make a weekly clone backup of the whole system and then switch it off when it's finished.

If cryptolocker got me, which is unlikely because I never open anything from anyone I don't know, and ask WTF is I get weird emails with attachments from those I do, then I would just reformat the HDD and restore the clone and carry one.

Lazyness and lack of IT awareness is the issue here. And i'm 45. By the time I retire the world will be a lot more IT savvy.

M