Ah this is almost like Ransomeware again, messing up your machine then extorting money from you.

Make sure you educate your non tech savvy relatives about such threats, spyware, adware, trojans and worm type viruses. Education is THE most powerful defence against malware and computer security incidents.

Some simple patching, a free Antivirus protection like Avast! Using Firefox or Opera and most people will be safe with a little education.

A new spyware program that lures computer users by claiming to give free access to pornographic Web content ends up by “blackmailing” them into purchasing a program to clean the infection, a security firm said.

US-based Panda Software said the program called DigiKeyGen generates passwords that supposedly enable users to access to pornographic websites.

At the same time, a spyware program and an alleged anti-spyware application are installed on a computer without the users’ knowledge, Panda said.

Ah the age old adage of free porn, won’t people learn? There’s no such thing as a free lunch, if it’s too good to be true…ITS NOT TRUE!

Porn does power the Internet though, that’s another matter entirely..

These guys say basically the same thing.

“You must always be suspicious of offers for something in exchange for almost nothing,” said Luis Corrons, director of Panda Software Labs, noting that the technique is not new.

“Cybercrime, which aims to make easy money, simply applies traditional fraud techniques to the Internet and as a result, anybody tempted by the chance to get something for nothing is taken in, unaware of the risks of apparently harmless actions, such as downloading small programs or accessing certain websites.”

In a separate security warning, Sophos Labs warned Tuesday that a security alert claiming to be from Microsoft is in fact a “trojan” that steals passwords.

It seems to never end.

Source: Yahoo! News

A new term has been coined, yes indeed..

Ransomeware

That’s what they are calling this new threat, infects your PC then freezes it until you send some people some money.

A new kind of malware circulating on the Internet freezes a computer and then asks for a ransom paid through the Western Union Holdings money transfer service.

A sample of the Trojan horse virus was sent to Sophos, a security vendor, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant. The malware, which Sophos named Troj/Ransom-A, is one of only a few viruses so far that have asked for a ransom in exchange for releasing control of a computer, Cluley said.

Pretty dodgy really, what with being able to buy a Spyware creation kit for $15, now people are coding trojans to make money..

Once run, the Trojan freezes the computer, displaying a message saying files are being deleted every 30 minutes. It then gives instructions on how to send $10.99 via Western Union to free the computer.

Hitting the control, alt, and delete keys will not affect the bug, the virus writer warns. Sophos provides further details at its Web site.

Pretty tight rein, it just shows how sloppy Windows is…and how powerful the API’s are…and how dumb it is to let non-computer literate people using Internet Exploder to run as Administrator..

There was a case similar to this recently.

Last month, a Trojan emerged that encrypts a user’s documents and then leaves a file demanding $300 in exchange for the password to access the information. Victims were instructed to send money to one of 99 accounts run by e-gold, a company that runs a money transfer site.

The password, however, was contained on the infected computer. Sophos cracked it and publicly released it.

I guess they will get more advanced (sadly) as time goes on.