Ransomware Computer Virus Poses Financial Threat to Computer Users- Instructables

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ransomware-Computer-Virus-Poses-Financial-Threat-t-1/

abney and associates, Ransomware Computer Virus Poses Financial Threat to Computer Users

Over recent years, computer and broadband related technology has come a long way. This has resulted in both consumers and individuals becoming increasingly reliant on their PCs and other internet enabled devices. However, while this advanced technology has provided commercial and residential users with far greater ease and convenience in a huge number of ways, it has also given rise to the growing breed of crime known as cyber-crime.

Used for everything from extorting money and obtaining information through to the out-and-out sabotage of systems, cyber-crime has become a huge problem in the United States and in other countries around the world. In a recent warning, federal authorities in the United States have urged users to be vigilant as a result of another virus that is current doing the rounds with the intention of obtaining money from unsuspecting users.

According to authorities, the 'ransomeware' computer virus is duping users into handing over their cash by locking their computer systems and displaying a warning message. The contents of the message are designed to lead users into thinking that the warning is from the Department of Justice or the courts. Users are told via the message that they have to make a payment or they could be prosecuted. However, officials have confirmed that government departments do not send out messages of this nature and the computer is locked by a virus that has been set up by cyber criminals looking to extort money from the public.

Dan Steiner, Security Expert from Online Virus Repair advised that making a payment in response to the message will not result in the user's computer being unlocked by the criminals. He said:

Computers affected by this virus will remain frozen until the user makes arrangements to have the virus removed. Those affected by the virus should refrain from making what is essentially a ransom payment, even if they are desperate to regain control of their computer, as paying will make no difference to anything other than their bank balances.

This is one in a long line of computer viruses that cyber-criminals are using to target both individuals and businesses. A similar virus was reported late last year, where users were receiving similar messages demanding payment and threatening prosecution. The U.S Justice Department has set up a hotline for those who want to obtain more information as well as those who have already fallen victim to this scam and wish to report it.

Over recent weeks, reports have highlighted how this virus has been gaining popularity, affecting computer users on a global basis. Authorities are hoping that raising awareness about the scam will help to stop more people falling victim to it.

Bringing internet snooping to book - topix

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Revelations that GCHQ and the NSA have tapped into the internet on a huge scale have rightly provoked outrage. But intelligence analysts aren't the only ones likely to be tempted by the captured information.

The internet has transformed our relationship with information – and with the world – in ways that continue to surprise us. That may appear to many readers, especially those below the age of thirty, as a statement of the blindingly obvious but I think it can bear repetition.

The latest evidence for the transformative power of the web comes from the explosion of outrage detonated by  Edward Snowden's revelations that the NSA and GCHQ have been tapping into online activity on an unprecedented scale and with little apparent legal, congressional or parliamentary oversight.

The extent of the snooping, which has targeted friend and foe alike, has upset many. Our allies in Germany and France are furious; Noam Chomsky is alarmed; the founding fathers of the "land of the free" are reportedly spinning in their graves; and John Kampfner has sounded a grim warning about the further erosion of the West's moral authority over more draconian regimes. Even senior staff at MI5 think that GCHQ may have gone too far.

Among the general population the reaction appears more mixed. There is disquiet certainly but a significant fraction of the population - almost half in the US – has shrugged off the snooping. Perhaps primed by powerful fictional accounts of electronic espionage in TV shows such as Spooks or Homeland or the Bourne films, many of us have long presumed that we are under surveillance and so were unsurprised at the news. I suspect also that a generation happy to splurge the minutiae of their lives over Facebook and Twitter is less likely to be concerned that personal information is up for grabs by the government.

We should not be so blasé. Privacy is a precious commodity. Its commercial value emerged clearly, if grubbily, from the accounts of intrusive journalism unearthed by the Leveson Inquiry. But how far does the state have the right to track our private lives, even if it is in the pursuit of our rather ill-defined national and economic interests? Most would agree that the state has some business monitoring internet traffic, to sniff out trails of criminal or terrorist activity, and there are plausible sounding reassurances that valuable intelligence has been obtained in this way (though it is hard to test such claims).

However, we still need to be wary of our guardians. Our police forces have shown a cavalier disregard for the law when it comes to gathering information on environmentalists, or the families of murder victims or when cosying up to the press for cash. How can we ensure that our intelligence analysts operate to higher standards, now that we have discovered them to be siphoning enormous torrents of information from our computers into theirs?

The admission by GCHQ lawyers that the UK has a "light oversight regime compared to the US" is hardly reassuring. Given the pace of technological change, the state's ability to capture and process information from the web will only increase. It is too early to tell this internet-altered world how we are going to find the proper balance between the invasion of privacy and the rights of the individual, but if we are to maintain any semblance of democracy these questions need to be weighed in public and in parliament.

And yet, amid all the brouhaha, the thought did occur to me that there could be an upside to the discovery of unprecedented levels of state-sponsored snooping. There is one group that might privately be wishing they had access to the information flows being sucked into GCHQ: biographers.

The authors of biographies have, I suspect, very mixed feelings about the perturbing effect of the internet on their profession. Online digital archives – such as the amassed material on the history of DNA at the Wellcome collection – are certainly a boon to biographers (and historians in general). But at the same time, email has almost completely extinguished the art of letter writing, a quintessentially private medium that has traditionally provided access to those incautious remarks that can be crucial to unmasking character and motivation. Such letters (or copies) were commonly preserved by the recipient or sender until after their death – so that the boundaries of privacy were preserved – and bequeathed to families as treasured mementos or to libraries as valuable archives.

I have been reading scientific biographies of late, tracking the development of x-ray crystallography during the 20th century through the lives of figures including Desmond Bernal, Dorothy Hodgkin, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. In each case the text is coloured and enlivened by snippets from private letters that were written long before the web enveloped the globe.