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Virus Holds Your PC For Ransom
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-04-27
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Troj/Ransom-A has started making the rounds and demanding the user of an infected PC send ransom via Western Union to the extortionist.
The report on the Sophos security website noted how an affected system will demand payment of $10.99 through Western Union's SwiftPay service.
A Western Union spokesperson said the company's security department would be looking into the matter and will cooperate fully with law enforcement in investigating this incident.
Troj/Ransom-A infects a Windows machine and hides in the PC's system. It displays pornographic images and several messages that indicate it is active. Part of the message calls for a $10.99 ransom to be paid to the party responsible for the Trojan in exchange for unlocking the PC and uninstalling the virus.
The virus writer claims through the displayed messages that only an exact payment of $10.99 will generate the necessary CIDN needed to unlock the system. Also, the virus states it will delete files and copy them into a hidden folder on the system. Only by using the unlocking code will the Trojan restore the files.
Sophos also noted how attempting to use the familiar Ctrl-Alt-Delete key sequence to find and kill the Trojan process does not work. Instead the Trojan taunts the user and spawns multiple processes to evade the kill command.
In a brazen act, the criminal behind the Trojan has included an email address for those users who have paid the fee but were unable to unlock the virus with the code.
That causes us to speculate that the method of using the Western Union CIDN to unlock the virus does not actually work; the code the criminal promises to deliver is probably the true key to the Trojan, but that is just speculation right now.
As always, home users and enterprise administrators should ensure their antivirus programs are up to date with the most current signatures and engines available.
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Tags: Troj/Ransom-A, Western Union
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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