Al Lustie's Tips and Tricks

I got a call from my friend.  (Actually, I have more than one friend, but the caller is a friend.)  He had come home from doing errands to find a message on his Windows screen.  It told him that his files had been encrypted and if he wanted to access them he needed to pay $400 within two days.

The malware is called "Cryptolocker" and one web site estimates that it infects 1,000,000 computers per month.  It is really, really, nasty.  It is extortion.  It is an electronic variant on the protection rackets found in poorer sections of major urban areas.  Did I mention that it is really, really nasty?

The second part of why it is nasty is that when you pay, not all your files may be unencrypted.  It is really, really, really nasty.

I was wondering what people think the punishment should be for the authors and distributors of this really, really, really nasty malware.  What do you think?

Imprisonment for twenty-five years at great cost to the taxpayers?  Execution?  Cutting off the coder's hands?  Removing their vocal cords?  Being locked in stocks, set on a flatbed and taken to the front doors of businesses which have been hit by this attack so they can pelt stuff at the perpetrator?

What do you think?  Leave your comment and let us know.

Oh, and BE SURE you are backing up your data at least daily.  The only remedy is to scour your hard disk, reinstall programs, and recover your data from an uninfected source.