Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

I just watched on the news where a local women had her computer hijacked by a hacker demanding money. Their computer was taken by the FBI for investigation. It would not boot and threatened to delete a file every 30 minutes unless they paid the ransom via wester union to some account.

According to the news report anti-virus software and fire walls did not stop this from happening. (Most likely because she was using NORTAN or McAfee.)

At any expense WOW. Talk about a nightmare.

News Story Link

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

The moral(s) of the story?
1 - don't open suspicious email attachments
2 - Have some decent and up-to-date antivirus running.
3 - backup your data

If your data's backed up, you can just say "ha ha screw you" to the datanapper and reinstall your PC. (Having made a statement to the police, of course)

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

1) Don’t use an account with administrative privileges for everyday activities.
2) Don’t open email from unknown senders.
3) Don’t use IE with low security settings. Better yet, don’t use IE.
4) Do use antivirus and keep it up to date. Symantec is still one of the best out there; just don’t get the version with all of the extra crap.
5) Do keep your system patched.
6) Do use a firewall of some sort. Hardware is better than software, but software is better than nothing.
7) Do set windows to require a Ctrl, Alt, and Del at log on.
8) Do put a complex password on the admin account and turn off administrative shares.
9) Do rename the admin account.


This sounds like an old TSR exploit, but could also be some type of root kit. Many home systems have a null admin password and administrative shares turned on. So some punk scans his local WAN subnet for computer names and with a whack-whack computername admin logon with no password gets right into your root drive. Sound easy? It is, and it’s hard for the average person to keep a system locked down. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. A hardware firewall is your best defense. Even if you let the system become a bot, the stand alone firewall will still prevent the hacker from making use of your system.

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

Tell people how to do these things. I sure as hell am not that knowledgeable.

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

As soon as my replacement HD arrives I'll be installing XP on it and having to teach myself how to do all that, as the guy who set up my system before is no longer available to me.

Ugh... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif
Turin

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

Well, that’s what I do for a living. If I tell you how to do it, then I have to get in your wallet :p

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

Guilty!
Check
Check
Check
Check
Semi-check. Software Firewall.
Not done...should do though.
Done. Very complex password. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Check


Are you serious!?!? People actually have their systems so unsecure...and it's so easy to fix! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

What's really funny about our hoe system is that our DSL router has a hardware firewall, our wireless router has a hardware firewall, and then our Norton security system has a software firewall. That and out IP changes every one to two minutes, I think I'm pretty safe...

Re: Hijacked PC\'s Being Held For Ransom
 

Kerensky - you should try playing a game of TCP/IP with SE:IV and that configuration... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif