by Chris Cumming

This is a very important message regarding your computer, e-mail and the Internet.

On 7 November I was alerted to a very serious threat to our computers and specifically all our documents on our computer.

The name of the threat is CyberLocker.

Read about this here: http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=15472&utm_medium=nl&utm_source=alerts&utm_content=2013-10-31-article-in-body-a

And here: http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/cryptolocker.asp

It is being reported that this virus currently cannot be intercepted or killed by current virus programs.   I am finding a number of sources claiming to protect computers from this malware but none have been confirmed by me.  Go to the Google search engine and type in "cyberlocker ransomware" and you will get a number of sites to explore on this issue.

It comes to its victims as one of various important e-mails with an attachment.  The mail could supposedly be from Fed-Ex, the Post Office, UPS, Administrator or any number of other sources.  All are, of course fake.  Once the victim opens the attachment, it is too late.  Every document on your hard drive will be encrypted making it impossible for you to get to them.  You will then receive an e-mail giving you something like 4 days to pay anywhere from $100 to $1,000 or more if you want the key to the encryption to get your files back.

About your only alternative is to wipe your computer clean and reinstall everything.  This is impossible if you do not have you files backed up.

There is currently no real way to stop this virus except by precaution.  Here is what I recommend:

1] Learn all you can about this virus.  Get all the best information you can and all the best counsel you can.

2] Never open any attachment unless the person sending it to you is known by you and uses a code word in the Subject line of the e-mail. 

3] Back up all your files now.  There are two ways to do this:

          A) Manually on separate hard drives you keep unattached to your computer, on CDs and DVDs or other storage media.
          B) Secure a backup company that deals with backing up all your data on secure servers in cyberspace and which save all that you do the moment you do it.

I just secured a cyberspace company with the name CrashPlan http://www.crashplan.com/   They performed a backup of all my computer files.  Clearly the initial back-up with take a couple of days, but once that is done, it will continue to back-up my data even if I am logged off the computer.  Cost: $59.99 a year.   A small cost when contemplating losing everything you own forever.  This software is backing up my computer every 15 minutes or so.

4] Have a Crash Plan of your own.

You can formulate your Crash Plan by simply answering the question, “If I had to wipe clean my computer hard drive, do I know the procedures for getting it up and running again with all your software programs and data.

---Do you currently have a list of all the software programs on your computer?
---Do you know the location of all your software programs/
---Do you have the web site addresses of all the primary programs you have downloaded from the Internet so that you can get them back?