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Hackers Holding
Computer Files Hostage

By Ted Bridis
The Associated Press
5-26-5
 
WASHINGTON - The latest threat to computer users doesn't destroy data or steal passwords - it locks up a person's electronic documents, effectively holding them hostage, and demands $200 to get them back.
 
Security researchers at San Diego-based Websense uncovered the unusual extortion plot when a corporate customer they would not identify fell victim to the infection, which encrypted files that included documents, photographs and spreadsheets.
 
A ransom note left behind included an e-mail address, and the attacker using the address later demanded $200 for the digital keys to unlock the files.
 
"This is equivalent to someone coming into your home, putting your valuables in a safe and not telling you the combination," said Oliver Friedrichs, a security manager for Symantec. The company said yesterday that the problem was serious but not deemed a high-level threat because there were no indications it was widespread.
 
The FBI said the scheme was unlike other Internet extortion crimes. Leading security and antivirus firms this week were updating protective software for companies and consumers to guard against this type of attack, which experts dubbed "ransomware."
 
"This seems fully malicious," said Joe Stewart, a researcher at Chicago-based Lurhq, who studied the attack software. Stewart managed to unlock the infected computer files without paying the extortion, but he worries that improved versions might be more difficult to overcome.
 
"You would have to pay the guy, or law enforcement would have to get his key to unencrypt the files," Stewart said.
 
The latest danger adds to the risks facing beleaguered Internet users, who must increasingly deal with categories of threats that include spyware, viruses, worms, phishing e-mail fraud and denial-of-service attacks.
 
In the recent case, computer users could be infected by viewing a vandalized Web site with vulnerable Internet browser software. The infection locked up at least 15 types of data files and left behind a note with instructions to send e-mail to a particular address to purchase unlocking keys. In an e-mail reply, the hacker demanded $200 be wired to an Internet banking account.
 
There was no reply to e-mails sent to that address Monday by The Associated Press.
 
Experts said the Web site where the infection originally spread already had been shut down. They also said the hacker's demand for payment might be his weakness, because bank transactions can be traced.
 
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
 
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pe
 

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