Families of SOs Community Group
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I got hit with the Cryptowall 2.0 malware last night. This little critter encrypts many of your files and since you do not have the key unless you pay these hackers several hundred dollars----which I won't-----the encryption cannot be broken and the files are basically gone. They cannot be opened.
This is a form of Ransomware you may have heard about. The particular form of Ransomware that attacked me has attacked over 600,000 computers in the past several months.
I lost some old Microsoft Word documents that were unimportant, but nothing else. I keep all my important files on an external hard drive unplugged from the main computer.
So everyone here probably has some pictures of their children / grandchildren they cannot afford to lose. Pictures and some documents cannot ever be replaced.
Put all the files you can never replace---the family photos, etc.----on an external drive or a flash drive and unplug the drive from the computer. If you get hit by this little monster, you will still have your pictures saved on an external media source.
It is important to UNPLUG the external hard drive that has the pictures because Crypto Wall will encrypt many of the files on your hard drive PLUS any files on any drive connected to your computer.
Just a heads up.
rewdiazepam
This is a form of Ransomware you may have heard about. The particular form of Ransomware that attacked me has attacked over 600,000 computers in the past several months.
I lost some old Microsoft Word documents that were unimportant, but nothing else. I keep all my important files on an external hard drive unplugged from the main computer.
So everyone here probably has some pictures of their children / grandchildren they cannot afford to lose. Pictures and some documents cannot ever be replaced.
Put all the files you can never replace---the family photos, etc.----on an external drive or a flash drive and unplug the drive from the computer. If you get hit by this little monster, you will still have your pictures saved on an external media source.
It is important to UNPLUG the external hard drive that has the pictures because Crypto Wall will encrypt many of the files on your hard drive PLUS any files on any drive connected to your computer.
Just a heads up.
rewdiazepam
rewdiazepam
http://tinyurl.com/ng2cwsy
rewdiazepam
@Effie, you can remove the virus, but the files stay encrypted and lost unless you pay the ransom. Actually there is a way to restore SOME of the files by using a procedure called "shadow copy" but it does not always work.
I got rid of mine by downloading the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and running it. It got rid of the malware, but my Word documents were unrecoverable.
After you remove the CryptoWall, then of course, you can recopy all your photos back to your hard drive.
rewdiazepam
I had Comodo Firewall and Avast anti-virus running and updated. It did not seem to matter as it got through anyway.
rewdiazepam
Also, this is just my opinion - and REW is correct - get something to back up your files and do it regularly - I try to remember to run it every Monday. But if I get something like this I do not even waste time removing the virus I just reformat the hard drive and then load my saved info from the external drive back on - the reason I do that is becasue you never know what nasty stuff that program has left in your computer - now that most computer manufacturers and Windows has a program for re formatting it is very simple to do. Back in the day they used to tell you that re formatting was bad for your hard drive but it isn't and it provides a clean slate.