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Zeus and Cryptolocker by Dave

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Dave
Just had this email from EE (as we are on Orange broadband)

Earlier this week you may have heard that the UK National Crime Agency and the FBI have managed to disrupt two cybercrime operations. These were GameOver Zeus and Cryptolocker.

GameOver Zeus malware is a kind of virus that creates a 'botnet'. A botnet is a network of computers that spread viruses and transfer banking information to defraud people and banks. Cryptolocker is a type of 'ransomware' that locks files on the victim's hard drive and demands payment for the decryption key that unlocks the files. This threat is targeted at computers running any version of Windows Operating System including Windows running on Apple Mac and any servers running Windows.

You have until 15th June to protect yourself
Your home computers may be vulnerable to attack but the success of this operation means there's a window of time from now until 15th June in which to protect them


OK, fair enough, but what I can't understand is why these threats are (apparently) not threats at present but will be on 15th June?

Posted 10 Jun 2014, 21:42 #1 

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Mick
(Site Admin)
Probably 2 weeks for the criminals to set up and star functioning again from different servers in different countries. They have only been shut down, not caught or stopped. Something of that ilk anyway.

"The mastermind behind the malicious software known as CryptoLocker has been identified and an international effort to shut the malware down has freed hundreds of thousands from its clutches.

The FBI has identified Slavik as Evgeniy Mikhailovitch Bogachev, a Russian national whose whereabouts remain a mystery. Prosecutors say he is responsible for two of the most sophisticated and destructive forms of malicious software in existence — Gameover Zeus and CryptoLocker

The operation to dismantle the network began on May 7 in Donetsk and Kiev, Ukraine, two cities convulsing with political violence. Ukrainian police seized and copied key computers in the network, prosecutors said. On May 30, the FBI, working with police around the world, kicked off a 72-hour operation to shut down every command-and-control computer in the Zeus network.

By the next day, CryptoLocker had ceased working. By June 2, police had freed more than 300,000 computers from the Zeus network."

Posted 10 Jun 2014, 23:10 #2 

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