I have so much information on my 7.3L that I would dread having to go through the pains to re-acquire all of it. There is some information I could never recover if I lost it - like pix and vids of the work I've done, and AE data through all my mods.

With that in mind, there is a very nasty virus going around that locks up all your data with an encryption and holds it for ransom - literally. You can purge the virus, but the damage is done - all your files are encrypted and you're not going to have access to it without paying the rather expensive ransom. I have backed up all my files, and I suggest everybody do the same. You don't need to back up the whole computer, just your data... like pictures, videos, documents, movies, music, tunes for your F6 or Hydra, etc....

This is one of those public service announcement things.

 

Thanks for the PSA. I'll back up this weekend. I have a slew of HDD's laying around exactly for this.

 

TUG, is that the crytoblocker virus?

 

Yep, Cryptoblocker is the real deal. Think Iran and their centrifuges... this bad boy can do some real and permanent harm. It's not some pimple-faced punk at play, this is organized and powerful. Need your 2013 tax information? Too bad. That big proposal you've been working on? Gone. Wedding/travel pictures? History in every sense of the word. Slo-mo vids of your injectors operating? No go. Superduty manuals? Better have paper copies. OR - back everything up while you have it.

 

If you backup to a local drive or file share, be sure to disconnect the drive or disconnect from the share when the backup is complete. It won't do any good to have a backup of a file if both are encrypted.

Oh, and for crying out loud, make sure you have current AV software running!

Mark

 

Definitely back up your computer!

This got me about 3 weeks ago. It got all my regular files such as word, excel, pdf, and the like.

It says it encrypted my pictures but I can still open those fine, same with my music. Some of my pdf's I have, such as service manuals are still accessible. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason on how it works.Also I don't have any videos so no idea there.

It can't be too amazing of a virus though, as it wasn't able to encrypt any of my Inventor, or Maya or specialized type files.

This can happen easily. I don't go anywhere not trustworthy and don't download tons of files, and I somehow still got it.

Protect your important stuff!

 

I know on a couple of the other forums, my Norton antivirus goes nuts blocking hijack attempts.... Don't open any email attachments you aren't expecting!

 

It takes a long time to encrypt files. Your AV may have updated and got wise to the virus mid-sentence.

 

I didn't realize it was such a slow process. That would explain why it behaved like it did. However I did a little more digging and figured some more stuff out about this thing. Everything that is "encrypted" has a little green check mark at the bottom left corner of the file symbol. I say "encrypted" because some of the files with the green check marks are actually encrypted, in which case it says the data is corrupted when I try to open it. Then there are those that have the green check mark and open just fine.

I believe the virus went through and found all the file types it could encrypt and simply threw a marker on them, before it got around to the encrypting. The reason it only got part of my files is because I renewed my Norton AV shortly after it popped up. I was without it for about 24 hours because I had not realized it was expiring. Stupid move on my part. However I didnt do anything abnormal, no strange sites, no weird downloads, no opening any weird emails, so however this thing got in, it was from somewhere I trusted.

This can very easily happen because of a small slip up, definitely back up everything of importance!

Thanks Rich for getting the word out, its a great idea, if only it were about 3 weeks ago......