[ross]

I had problems with my facebook account as some tried to access this from Poland- looks like the eastern euro hackers are everywhere. a few small and medium businesses in australia have been hacked using sophisticated enryption software and for this to be removed the hackers are asking for "ransom" money to unlock/delete it from the web site/database. the encryption software is military/industrial grade and experts here say it's impossible to get rid of it?- either people pay up or they get people in to restore databases from old archived ones.



The 2012 epidemic of ransom malware appears to have turned even nastier with reports that as many as 30 Australian businesses have now asked police for help coping with attacks in a matter of days.

According to local news, police in the state of Queensland have received reports from a dozen businesses while many other are believed to have chosen to keep incidents to themselves.

Businesses affected included those in the medical, entertainment, retail and insurance sectors, the news source said, with several dozen affected in total.


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In one recent incident, a business in the Northern Territories reportedly paid an AUD $3,000 (about ?2,000) ransom via Western Union to get back access to important financial records, including credit card data and debtor invoices. The attackers demanded the money within seven days or the sum would increase by AUD $1,000 per week.

Worryingly, this attack used 256-bit encryption, to all intents and purposes impossible to crack if the key has not been exposed during the attack.