Citizens' computers were hacked by Bitcoin viruses and they had to pay 5,000 yuan to unlock them

Source: Shenyang Evening News

Mr. Liu, a resident of Shenyang, likes to do some literary creation in his spare time. His computer stores hundreds of thousands of words of text materials. But recently, Mr. Liu may lose these precious materials forever because his computer was unfortunately targeted by a Bitcoin ransomware virus called "Cerber Ransomware". "All the files are locked. If you want to unlock them, you need to pay 1.25 Bitcoins." Mr. Liu said: "I asked people in the industry, this is a very powerful virus. If you don't pay the ransom, I'm afraid the only way out is to format the computer."

"For me personally, it's nothing more than losing the things in my computer. But what I'm worried about is that once this virus invades other computers, will it cause greater losses?" said Mr. Liu.

Suddenly: All computer files cannot be opened

At noon on September 27, Mr. Liu turned on his computer to prepare for work as usual, but was surprised to find that the computer seemed to have been "tampered with". "All my documents, photos and file names have become English."

What happened next was even stranger: "My computer seemed to be paralyzed and wouldn't respond. All my files wouldn't open. I restarted it several times, but it still didn't respond."

Mr. Liu thought the computer was broken, but he didn't know that things were not that simple.

Weird: English "ransom note" appears on computer

Later, Mr. Liu took his computer to be repaired. The moment he turned on the computer, the maintenance staff said "something is not good". "The staff told me that my computer was invaded by a foreign virus." Mr. Liu then realized the seriousness of the problem.

Soon, the maintenance personnel found a letter-like full-English document named "Cerber Ransomware" on Mr. Liu's computer. The document showed: "Cannot you find the files you need? Is the content of the files that you looked for not readable? It is normal because the files'names, as well as the data in your files have been encrypted." (Cannot find the files you need? Cannot read the contents of your files? This is normal because your file names and data have been encrypted.)

In the English letter, the other party proposed that if you want to decrypt the file, you need to pay 1.25 bitcoins. "The ransom is about 5,000 yuan, and the specific payment method is also included." The maintenance personnel told Mr. Liu that there is no better solution at present, and the only way is to format the computer, but all the data in the computer will be lost.

Not only that, Mr. Liu also learned from the maintenance personnel that several people's computers had encountered the same problem in recent days.

Experts: We need to find the decryption key

Mr. Liu chose to call the police, but the Internet monitoring department said that individual reports were not accepted and transferred Mr. Liu's case to the local police station. "The police station asked me about the situation and they are not sure whether they can solve the problem at present." Mr. Liu said: "For me personally, it is nothing more than throwing away the things in my computer. But I am worried that if this virus invades other computers, it will cause irreparable losses."

An expert in network security told reporters from Shenyang Evening News and Shenyang.com that Mr. Liu was attacked by hackers who re-encoded all his files with a "new algorithm". Although it looked completely different, it had its own internal rules. The "key" to mastering this rule was in the hands of hackers, just like "dismantling a bomb", which cannot be dismantled by force. If you are really kidnapped by ransomware, you can only wait for the police to crack down on the hacker group and publish the decryption key, or try the old decryption key that the police cracked in the past, but both methods are a matter of luck. In this case, paying the ransom may be the only solution.

It is understood that there have been some related cases of such hacker behavior in China. In order to prevent attacks from foreign hackers, citizens must pay attention to always turn on firewalls and anti-virus software when connecting to the Internet, maintain backup habits, and do not randomly click on unfamiliar small websites.