I assume it’s horrible to open up your personal documents file on your computer and finding a ransom note warning you that all of your private files will be deleted unless you pay a ransom to the cyber criminals. Well, that's exactly what happened over the past several days to more than a thousand victims, many of them employees at U.S.-based companies and government contractors.
According to a Reuters story, this extortion attack played out at some of the nation's biggest corporations, including Booz Allen Hamilton, computer services company Unisys Corp., defense contractor L-3 Communications, computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. and satellite network provider Hughes Network Systems. These were just the victims that rose to the top of the hit list. There are hundreds more.
Strangely enough, the story makes hardly any mention of the extortion attack itself, saying the malicious code was designed to steal data from infected machines. Russian anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab has a more detailed look at this intruder, including a copy of the ransom note, which demands $300 for a special key supposedly designed to let victims unscramble documents encrypted by the virus. Full story
