"ransomware" hackers arrested

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These are the kind of people who should be put away in prison for life. It is terrifying to have this show up on your screen and then someone remotely turn your camera on. I hope they are all locked up for good.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology ... id-052014/

The Squid is happy. One less shark roams the internet ocean. Now to deal with the other thousand. May their turnips taste foul, and may they spend the remainder of their lives in fishbowls!

blackshades is just one of many RATs-people have been doing it for years, good to know theyve been caught but its just a tiny dent to the blackhat community.

used to belong to a community of the whole hacking spectrum from black,to grey to white; hat.
many black and grey hats used RATs to either extort money from paedophiles; they woud socialy engineer into believing they were a kid and getting a RAT on their system, the grey hats woud socialy engineer and RAT them but for the purpose of getting evidence off their hard drive ,what they were browsing and their webcam so they coud get them arrested.

Glad to hear they're being rounded up. I heard the promo for one of those "secrets revealed" TV shows where the guy says 'they can turn on your webcam and take pictures of you ! !'
Turns out to be the truth....

It happened to my sister about 5 weeks ago. Her computer froze with a page on the screen that was a fake FBI page saying her computer had been locked because she was suspected of having child pornography on her machine and that any attempt to remove the page on her screen would result in her arrest and incarceration and a possible huge fine. She was instructed on that page to send $300 via moneygram within 72 hours. As she was calling me to ask what was going on a screen capture of her on the phone popped up showing her talking to me. About gave her a heart attack. They bought the computer to me to figure it out and I was scrambling around for about three hours like a squirirel collecting acorns in a blizzard s I found a way to get around that screen and deal with the issue. About gave me a heart attack too.

I had that happen and had to shell out for updated virus software, which cured the problem. Then it happened on my Mac, which I rebooted and was fine.

It's nasty stuff. Someone's been sending me emails the last few weeks with malicious attachments. They've stopped the last few days so may be related to that ring that has been busted. The emails pretend the attachment is a fax or a love letter or an unpaid invoice and so on. I just delete them without opening the attachment. A google search indicates this particular malware campaign downloads lots more malware including installing ransomware on your computer. The randomware encrypts all your files and demands money for the password to release your files. If anyone gets fooled into opening these attachments the only realistic cure is to format the hard drive and set the computer up from scratch and say goodbye to any documents you hadn't already got backups of!

It took me about an hour before I zeroed in on the "ransom" part of the frozen screen. Then It dawned on me if this were the FBI they are not going to demand a ransom, they are just going to kick in the door and grab everyone and everything. After I came to that epiphany I started investigating the virus itself and found some methods to get that crap out of the computer and running normally again. But I have heard of these people who get into your computer and plant incriminating and illegal files before asking for the ransom, so I wasn't sure what was happening.

It required searching the Interweb on another computer, and buying new anti-virus software, but I was able to get my computer back up and working (so to speak, it has Vista on it.)

I do not leave my computer awake unattended. If I see any signs of the unexpected, like my computer coming under control by an outside force, a strange window popping up, or the light of the webcam turning on, then I will run to my router and unplug it. Afterwards, I will assess the damage. I will go to another computer with a different IP address (meaning I gotta get up and drive somewhere) and contact the FBI immediately.

It's reasons like this that make me happy to be a paranoid schizophrenic. I disable my microphone and keep my webcam taped up at all times. Anything with a camera or mic really. After reading today Facebook are likely gonna be listening in on phone conversations it's making being online all that more terrifying. For every one taken down another replaces them, it's maybe best for people to get away from all sorts of technology now and we all return to a simpler less scary time. We shouldn't have to not feel safe in our lives

I'm kind of paranoid too, but not schizophrenic. I tape up the webcam, disable the microphone, use Click&Clean to delete all information that my browser stores on my computer after each browsing session, use DoNotTrackMe and Adblock Plus to block trackers, use HTTPS Everywhere to automatically make connections to websites more secure, use DuckDuckGo to prevent my web searches from being tracked, have disabled all browser feedback that would normally get sent to Google from Google Chrome, sometimes use ScriptSafe so I can't be tracked through Flash or Java, and sometimes use a high anonymous proxy server that I've verified through proxycop.com to avoid having my IP address tracked. I've also removed everything but basic information from my Facebook account; and always log out of Facebook and Google, and delete their cookies, before browsing other websites. I never use my email or cell phone, or post on anyone's Facebook wall, and only instant message impersonal information. My cell phone is always turned off and placed inside an RF jammer pouch, so my coordinates can't be tracked. And I have a batch file saved to my desktop that I can use to conveniently disable my internet connection when I'm not using it. Unfortunately there's no way to prevent browser fingerprinting as of now, so even after using all of my resources, I can't be completely anonymous. I've got nothing to hide anyways, so I'm not too concerned. I'm just not fond of the possibility of being spied on. I've been a lot more careful since the NSA revelations.