What about bitcoin and ransom

[Mickeyb]

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!

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[n2004al]

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?

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.

[Spoetnik]

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"

[Spoetnik]

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?

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.

backups make little difference..

[erikalui]

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.

[richardsNY]

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.

[makcik]

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.

[Spoetnik]

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.

so naive LOL

[Amph]

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?

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.

backups make little difference..

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...

[Spoetnik]

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!

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

[erikalui]

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.

so naive 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.

[btckold24]

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.