2013-11-15 Daily Telegraph: Tens of millions targeted by email 'ransom’ virus

[solex]

Tens of millions targeted by email 'ransom’ virus

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10453602/Tens-of-millions-targeted-by-email-ransom-virus.html

CL hitting the main news!

I hope Kaspersky, Norton, F-secure et. al. get their act in gear fast.

[Raoul Duke]

They forgot about the part where the virus also accepts GBP/USD/EUR payable with a moneypak or whatever...

[solex]

They forgot about the part where the virus also accepts GBP/USD/EUR payable with a moneypak or whatever...

I had never heard of moneypak until this happened, and lived in the EU for many years. Maybe Bitcoin is more famous than moneypak now.

[lucaspm98]

They forgot about the part where the virus also accepts GBP/USD/EUR payable with a moneypak or whatever...

Yeah thats strange. Bitcoins are much harder to buy than moneypaks, Im sure that many more of the ransoms are paid with them instead of Bitcoin.

[oakpacific]

If I put my tinfoil hat on, I can't eliminate the possibility that it's some taxpayer funded organizations' plot to : 1. raise as many bitcoins for themselves as possible; 2. guide public opinion to support more regulations and blacklisting for Bitcoin.

[mccorvic]

I work in IT and have had a few clients get cryptolocker on various computers.  We do backups of course, so they had no need to pay the ransom.

I kinda secretly wished they'd had gone for the ransom anyways so I could tell them about bitcoin

[oakpacific]

And this how you debunk media double-speak, we can be absolutely certain that there is nowhere near tens of millions of victims of this virus, not even a fraction.

[lucaspm98]

If I put my tinfoil hat on, I can't eliminate the possibility that it's some taxpayer funded organizations' plot to : 1. raise as many bitcoins for themselves as possible; 2. guide public opinion to support more regulations and blacklisting for Bitcoin.

Well, anyone would want free bitcoins not just the government, so Im not quite understanding that point.

[theonewhowaskazu]

Inb4 Norton starts marking Bitcoin QT as malicious software.

[oakpacific]

If I put my tinfoil hat on, I can't eliminate the possibility that it's some taxpayer funded organizations' plot to : 1. raise as many bitcoins for themselves as possible; 2. guide public opinion to support more regulations and blacklisting for Bitcoin.

Well, anyone would want free bitcoins not just the government, so Im not quite understanding that point.

It's funny how they consider the distributed botnet to be not prosecutable, while targetting the also distributed Bitcoin network.

[markjamrobin]

If I put my tinfoil hat on, I can't eliminate the possibility that it's some taxpayer funded organizations' plot to : 1. raise as many bitcoins for themselves as possible; 2. guide public opinion to support more regulations and blacklisting for Bitcoin.

Well, anyone would want free bitcoins not just the government, so Im not quite understanding that point.

Point being that Gov. is trying to make BTC associated with crime.