Pay Up or the Hard Drive Gets It

A ransomware attack

Screenshot.

You?ve just opened a Web page or clicked a link in an email when your computer?s desktop goes gray. A browser window pops up with the FBI logo in the top left corner. Below it is a live webcam feed with a picture of someone?s face. You try to click away but find that your browser is locked. With a start, you recognize the face staring at you from the screen: It?s you.

This isn?t the plot of a Japanese horror film. It?s a frightening form of malware called ?ransomware? that has been seen with increasing frequency in recent months. No one knows exactly how many people have been hit with it, but security firm McAfee reports that it recorded more than 120,000 new samples in the second quarter of 2012, a fourfold increase from the same quarter last year.

There are many variants of ransomware, all of which begin by locking you out of your own machine. The next phase: trying to blackmail, intimidate, or otherwise spook you into forking over cash. You probably shouldn?t do it. But it?s easy to see why a lot of people do.

The version I described in the first paragraph is the product of a virus called Reveton, which you can contract either by clicking a malicious link or visiting an infected website, which triggers an automatic download. Beneath the video feed, which registers the surprise on your face as you recognize yourself, are your computer?s IP address and hostname and an urgent message: ?Your computer has been locked!? Scroll further and you?ll find yourself accused of possessing illegally downloaded files in violation of federal copyright laws. (A new iteration claims that you?re in violation of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act?which, as serious netizens know, never actually became law.)

The crime, you?re told, is punishable by a fine or up to three years in prison. There?s only one way to unlock your computer, according to the warning on your browser, and that?s to pay up. And if you don?t pay the specified ?fine? within 48 or 72 hours?often by purchasing a prepaid cash card such as Green Dot?s Moneypak, which makes the transaction hard to trace?it claims that you?ll be locked out of your machine permanently and face criminal charges to boot.

The criminal charges are bogus, of course, but the threat of being permanently locked out of your files is real, says Chet Wisniewski, senior security adviser at the data-security firm Sophos. Some victims have reported that, after a certain amount of time passed, their files were in fact deleted. On the other hand, it?s unclear whether paying up actually helps, or if it just prompts the bad guys to try to squeeze more out of you. One thing security experts do know is that the scam appears to be automated. It would be a mistake to assume there?s an actual human on the other end whom you can persuade to take it easy on you because you really, really need those files.

Other types of ransomware do without the webcam scare tactic but ratchet up the stakes in other ways. Sophos? Graham Cluley told me that his friend?s elderly parents were hit by a version that claimed to have found child pornography on their computer. They knew they hadn?t downloaded any such thing. Still, they were tempted to follow the instructions on screen rather than face the mortification of explaining the situation to their children or the police.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4f4aa40ee9037e8fa2a7cd8e80aa2956

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