Anyone Experienced With The Crypto Wall Virus??? This Is Really Bad News!

i have no plans on clicking on any of those links, which probably leads me to the virus. i always thought it only covered DOC type files.

---Mike Savad

Hi Mike, I don't see that those links are clickable, but no one should follow those links. I just wanted to show the message that they included with their takeover. Yes, it covers doc files as well as jpgs and I believe one other type of file. I will remove those addresses above so that no one will follow them.

First and foremost, whatever "they" tell you to do, DON'T DO IT!

Here's an article describing the problem. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2600543/cryptowall-held-over-halfamillion-computers-hostage-encrypted-5-billion-files.html

Symantec may have a solution http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2014-061923-2824-99

Thank you James

the only thing it reminded me to do is to make new backups on a dvd of the doc files these were meant for. i heard about this one last year. i forgot to do it over the 8 months or so.

---Mike Savad

Thanks for the info James. I think that from now on I am going to use my oldest, crappiest, computer for the internet and my good computer with my important stuff on it for everything else. I have too many old backup drives that won't work with newer computers and operating systems to even trust them. It seems like my old camera cards are still working and the files still accessible. Maybe that is more effective for me anyway than the backup devices that I have used.

I found some info on youtube on how to get rid of this malware. Some say to just do the going back to an earlier time. I tried it but couldn't go back far enough. I found this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evy0xK1N2gc I think I am too scared to try it though.

when you go back, it will save the current session. but the back step doesn't save the jpgs and such unless you asked it too. the space would be too much. so if you have locked files then your out of luck. and it doesn't always work, sometimes a virus will remove the back steps, and others will replace those copies with copies of itself. in the worst case scenario, or most annoying, you can format and start over.

---Mike Savad

This malware seems to be confined to whoever is the current user. I created a new user id with full permission and the computer and the internet is working great. It is when I went into the affected or infected user id, that is where the trouble begins. We couldn't see that the files were infected until we went into "my pictures" where all the photos were kept that we could see what the problems was. Everyone should have an extra id that is granted full permission to make changes. That way if your having a problem in one user id account, you have a better chance of fixing it using another id that is unaffected rather than trying to fix the problem in the current id that is having the problem.

sorry to hear this happening to you or anyone else but it would be interesting to find out how they can get a way with doing this.

Evidently there have been previous versions of this virus (trojan) with names like cryptolocker. Also referred to as "ransomeware".

The criminals behind CryptoWall managed to compromise 625,000 computers in the last six months, surpassing the roughly half million infected with CryptoLocker.

However, its lack of less complicated payment options has led to a much smaller take, roughly $1.1 million versus about $3 million for CryptoLocker.

CrptoWall encrypts files more important to consumers, such as jpgs, audio and video files. CrytoLocker was more focused on document files.