Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

This post is promopted by an incident happened to a friend in UK who was watching porn online and contracted a nasty virus. Ransonware is the name given by online community to this new age virus. The malware often announces itself in a pop-up and (wrongly) informs a computer user that their machine has been commandeered by law enforcement for illegal activity. It will not be unlocked, the message says, until a fine is paid. Carriers are often porn sites, so victims are easily conned into believing the message is real. Whether or not the victim recognizes this for the scam that it is, their computer is unquestionably unusable until the virus is removed.

This resutls in share and fear for the user. In its current form, the malware generates a pop-up that purports to be from law enforcement and demands that the user pay a fine for illegal activity (most often an alleged viewing or distributing of illegal pornography) conducted on the computer.

Ongoing Loop

Even when the price is paid, the scammers will not restore the victim's computer. Symantec notes that much ransomware does not even contain the code to uninstall itself. Forums are filled with stories of people who have paid the requested price and are still left with the virus.

On a Yoo Security forum, a commenter named Kevin writes, "I'm concerned. My laptop has been blocked with this FBI message since Tuesday evening. It won't let me in unless I pay $400.00 via moneypak. I paid the $400.00 yesterday morning and the computer is still locked. Question? did my $400 actually goes somewhere, and how do I unlock this laptop." 

A YouTube video on how to remove the virus has a comment from Patriot2572, a victim twice over: "I paid the $300 and now it is requesting $600 after it was 'rejected' but i called moneypak and they said it the money was picked up by someone in Romania..I sent the $600 now it is pending...."