Is this a Computer Virus?
 

Took a nap and woke up to this shit on my computer. Is this legit? Doesn't look like anything I should trust, especially to pay $300 to. The grammar is broken English. Some screen shots.

This is how my screen appeared when I opened my laptop.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...encryption.jpg

So I tried to close and a pop up appeared saying "I will be back!" :wtf:So I moved it out the way and noticed my wallpaper was changed to this.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...ncryption0.jpg

So then I tried to CTRL ALT DEL the sob and that doesn't work. So I continued through the screens and get this nonsense.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...ncryption2.jpg

And you have two options to pay some asshole $300 either.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...cryption3b.jpg
or
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...cryption3a.jpg

Great way to start my Thanksgiving.

-Alex

Yup. Trojan virus looks like. No. Bueno.

Download Malwarebytes. Its a great free program to remove all that crap

Thanks guys. I'll check into the malwarebytes thing.

-Alex

It's legit... I heard about it going around and there's a time limit on paying the money or your shit is just encrypted forever and you're SOL. You can remove the trojan, but if you ever want to have those files back and they aren't backed up on a drive or location that IS NOT connected to the network your computer was on then you've gotta pay up. Read the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker

Worst advice ever. Do not pay these people. Take your computer to best nut or something and they will get it off.

You clearly don't read well... I never advised him to pay them, in fact I'm against it. I said that you can remove the Trojan for free. You cannot ever decrypt or use any files it encrypted though unless you remove the Trojan first and restore a good backup, or pay the ransom. Those are the only options.

I'll be looking into getting Norton this weekend and installing it. Looks like it really did a number on my files. Can't play any of the videos I created and media players are not working either. Oh and neither is any web browsers, so that's extra nice. Just hoping I can restore all my files, this is just what I needed for Turkey Day.

-Alex

Go with NOD32. But I'd take it to a computer professional first. I've heard of people with that same virus losing everything.

Any recommendations? The files are still on the computer, thank God but they cannot be opened.

-Alex

Yes. Take it to a computer guy. That is a pretty serious virus.

Know any places in particular local?

-Alex

The technical term for it is Ransomware. It's a PITA to clean and it will be expensive to do.

This. It's getting very popular. There is so much crap hackers can do to individuals and companies without anyone realizing through links and simple files. These files can be transmitted through executables disguised as simple .pdf's. This is why I have a mac, they are less susceptible to malware, viruses, etc and they are less buggy. I run a windows virtual machine on the off chance I need to run something designed for pc only. I also have my most important files stored in the cloud.

Should be getting the computer back today. A friend did some research and told me not to be too optimistic about the guy being able to un-encrypt my files since they are encrypted using a 600+ character code that changes every ten seconds. The code for my company only uses a 6 character code lol. This is going to suck a lot but, you live and learn.

-Alex