On 06/03/2015 11:38 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
Did you not read the HELP_DECRYPT.TXT file? This has nothing to do with OpenOffice. Your computer was attacked by some means and all of your important files have been encrypted. To have them be decrypted, you must pay a ransom, as specified in that .TXT file. This is a known attack. There are a variety of ways that it can reach your computer. It could have arrived some time ago, and it only triggered at the time you noticed. The painful reality is explained in this post, which describes the CryptoWall attack and one of the ways you might have encountered it: <http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/cryptowall-ransomware-information>. In general, the encrypted files cannot be decrypted. It is important to have backups or earlier versions that have not been encrypted and restore with those once you remove the attack software itself.
/snip/ Is it known whether any of the usual anti-malware programs is effective against this, and if so, which ones? I would assume when you mention backup, you mean _removable_ backup, like a USB dongle or a USB plug-in hard drive. Wouldn't any text file on the internal hd be infected? I might suggest that users of Linux don't seem to have those problems; I only use Windows about 3% of the time, and I have a couple of anti-malware programs on the Windows partition. So far, so good (knock wood!) Written from PCLinuxOS--doug --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
