You are NOT being paranoid –they ARE out to get you. 

Well, joy of joys there’s a new virus/trojan/nasty-thing out to get us … if we let it.

Let’s start with what it is. As usual it is delivered neatly wrapped in an innocent looking e-mail as an attachment looking just like set of funny cat pictures, or a message from your bank, anything to entice you to open it … and you do.

The business end of the attack is a process that makes a large number of files on your PC unreadable without a special key and a second part holds you to monetary ransom (of about £1,000 in one version) for the use of the key to unscramble your files. Versions of this has a countdown timer giving only a few days to pay the ‘ransom’ and to make the more worrying the payment is demanded in BitCoins (an internet currency) although this varies with different versions of the ransom attack.

The warning about this attack has been issued by the National Cyber Crime Unit who would never endorse the payment of a ransom to criminals and there is no guarantee that they would honour the payments in any event.

So, what can you do if you get a big threat splashed across your PC screen with a running countdown clock that just won’t go away … almost nothing.

What are the authorities doing? An NCCU investigation is ongoing but the only practical action for owners of PCs infected with this malware should report it via Action Fraud and follow the advice published at GetSafeOnline which relates more to prevention rather than cure:

1. The public should be aware not to click on any such attachment.
2. Antivirus software should be updated, as should operating systems.
3. User created files should be backed up routinely and preserved off the network.
4. Where a computer becomes infected it should be disconnected from the network, and professional assistance should be sought to clean the computer.
5. Various antivirus companies offer remedial software solutions (though they will not restore encrypted files).   

[Webmaster comment: If you get in this state, the outcome for you stuff on your PC is pretty grim. But, despite there being thousands of files on your PC there are probably only two categories that really are irreplaceable – certain file types (say Word documents, Photos, Spreadsheets, e-mail databases) or certain folders (say My Documents/Family, My Documents/Bank Details).

So the above bullet points are valuable –

1) This is perhaps the most difficult – we have only just got used to the ‘miracle’ of the Internet and finding fun and useful things attached to e-mails the prospect of any of them, from any of you friends or colleagues, could be laden with nasties is difficult to accept.

2) Antivirus: my antivirus (Avast – Free) has just this week found an infected attachment on a mail from a friend that I was not surprised to receive and may have been temped to open – safely disposed of – Antivirus programs don’t catch all these things but can catch many.

3) Backup: How obvious really, save the file types or folder contents off-line from time to time. This is good for eventual recovery from this sort of attack and many others. I can see you nodding but how many really do it? It can be made almost automatic even saving all new or changed files in your special folders or for certain file types.

4) This makes a lot of sense – but who do you turn to …

5) I would not set much store in the use of remedial software solutions – especially something as complex as this. I think this part of 4)

With all the files that matter to you, reasonably up to date, a PC’s operating system can be reloaded, software reloaded and your files stored back in the same place they were saved from … and you’ve got you PC back almost complete with possibly only the cost of expert time to pay.

Some questions and opportunities arise from this and, as members of U3A, we may be able to change our group behaviors and operate safely in the future … but who can step forward with good processes for us to follow?]