'Two Weeks' To Prepare For Cyber Attack

ok. Not sure where to put this Thread but its just popped up on skynews:

The National Crime Agency is warning computer users they have two weeks to protect against a "powerful computer attack".

It comes as US officials held a press conference accusing a Russian hacker of masterminding the scam and raking in £60m.

Two pieces of malware software known as GOZeuS and CryptoLocker are at the centre of the alert.

People are being warned to make sure their security software and operating system are both up to date, and to run scans to check for any problems.

Important files should also be backed up, said the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA).

The malware typically infects a computer via attachments or links in emails.

What I want to know is, is this threat real or are the NCA wanting everyone to upgrade their PC's so the NCA can use the new software available in Windows to spy on us even more? I know that the old xp is finished with updating but i've read that the new windows comes with new spying software!

news.sky.com...

I can't upgrade, nothing seems to work with 2000 anyway. I doubt if their surveillance software will even operate right. Yup, I need to upgrade to help the NSA out I suppose.

a reply to: rickymouse

I guess we'll find out in 2 weeks!

how do the NCA know its exactly 2 weeks anyway?

Did the Russian hacker call and tell them this? If so, why havn't they tracked him down?

Someone talk to me about this 'national crime agency'.
I've never heard of it. How reliable are they? What do they do?
I could google ... but I'd rather hear from someone who knows
and can summarize. Thanks.

Sky News puts out some strange and untrue stuff at times .They usually have a anti-russian bend to them too . a reply to: FlyersFan

originally posted by: FlyersFan
Someone talk to me about this 'national crime agency'.
I've never heard of it. How reliable are they? What do they do?
I could google ... but I'd rather hear from someone who knows
and can summarize. Thanks.

Lazy?

a reply to: minusinfinity

Not really, she just doesn't want to read the bias results she will get on google.
FF is far from lazy IMO, always has the sources and what not to back up her claims.
Been at it with her a few times and lazy is not the word I would ever use

National Crime Agency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Crime_Agency‎CachedSimilar
"The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the
United Kingdom which replaced the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It became..."

Well, only thing I can add is I hope this is untrue - Cryptolocker is bad news. You get that one on your system and you are screwed no matter what. Very strange they have an exact timeline I agree.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

The NCA knows when they are going to release their own virus. Gee, give some credit to the ones who created it.

Interesting that anyone has any idea when the 'next big attack!' is gonna happen; unless it's being staged by whoever is publishing the information. The way I see it, unless you're involved, there's no way to even guess.

I do advise that everyone go out and get some sort of external media to store your data on; but that is just for the event of your computer's hardware actually failing. As per these viruses - they are no more alarming than anything that has existed for years; and there isn't any new magical route for hackers to take into your computer - YOU Have to give them access.

Some very simple words of advice...

-If you do not know the email's sender - do not open the attachment, or even the email for that matter.
-Before you download any file on the internet, inspect the URL where it is stored ( it will generally display at the bottom of the page when you hover over the link ) - if the URL does not appear to be under the same 'domain' as the site you are downloading from, Don't download it.
-If you are downloading a Program - you will -almost- never encounter a legitimate one less than a Megabyte in size. I will generally flag anything less than this as -probably- malicious.
-If you open Anything and it asks you 'Do you want to allow this program to make changes to your computer' - unless you are specifically intending to grant the program COMPLETE ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL OVER YOUR COMPUTER, do Not allow the program to proceed. If you don't know what that means, and your computer asks you if you want to allow changes to be made... I advise NEVER clicking yes.

Smart approach by the black-hats this time around - gives me a new option should I ever decide to turn to the dark side

originally posted by: minusinfinity
Lazy?

Knock it off.

I could easily google up what it is. But places have reputations that aren't in the official write ups. THAT is what I was asking for. Are they reliable?

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist


you know, the last time i listened to the gov't about any up grade and/or password change was a couple years ago.

the one were we had to change yahoo password because some were hacked/stolen.

i did change mine like a good little sheeple , and minutes later i was blocked out.

a warning came up that said i blocked for 24 hrs., so i waited.

24 hrs. later, and a couple years later, i still can't get into my yahoo.

i can't even get ahold of them thru my wifes account.



So no, i won't be listening to this kind of nonsense.

originally posted by: rickymouse
a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

The NCA knows when they are going to release their own virus. Gee, give some credit to the ones who created it.

LOL.

It does seem a strange one indeed.

Thanks for the info DIGITALJEDI. Those are useful tips but anyone who doesnt know these things are asking for trouble anyway.

I am in the UK, and while the attack may be true,I never believe a word on the Sky lies channel, however, if you want to see who is not flavor of the day, you can always tune in for a laugh.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

I am not worried...99% of my activity involves my iPad so no worries here

I imagine the whole 2 weeks thing is the time we have plus or minus a few days before this hack is back up and operational again.

Regardless the article has served to remind me to run my puter checks.

a reply to: solargeddon

Running an anti-virus scan wont do any good if you have crytolocker. It encrypts all of your data, and then requires you to pay them a large sum of money before a deadline for the key to get it un-locked. The bad thing about this, is that without that key, there is NO WAY to get your data back.

It is a good thing that you have AV software though, as it should catch the virus BEFORE it rams itself into your data hole. I mean hard drive.

a reply to: andr3w68

Yes, well hopefully my AV has done the trick and prevented it from laying an egg on my drive!

2 years ago, I had to get my Computer recovered fully as some bastard virus got into my disk drive and was waiting for me to execute it by inserting a disk (which I did unknowingly of course), my Computer went into meltdown... couldn't play disks, couldn't use the net, couldn't even sign in once I switched off and booted up again.

I ran a scan last week and found a bug waiting on a pdf document, also found one other on a pdf converter!

originally posted by: andr3w68
a reply to: solargeddon

Running an anti-virus scan wont do any good if you have crytolocker. It encrypts all of your data, and then requires you to pay them a large sum of money before a deadline for the key to get it un-locked. The bad thing about this, is that without that key, there is NO WAY to get your data back.

It is a good thing that you have AV software though, as it should catch the virus BEFORE it rams itself into your data hole. I mean hard drive.

I never said anything about anti-virus, I said puter checks, because anti-virus is never enough!

I have read a few of these articles relating to this across the web and none have been clear about the 2 week thing, with many thinking something is going to happen in a couple of weeks, all I am doing is pointing out what they mean by 2 weeks, nothing about what will take out the malware and what won't.

I have to run a check every now and again...I haven't done so in ages!