virus

Against the advice of security experts, a police department has paid a $750 ransom to cybercriminals who corrupted its file system using a 'ransomware' attack. The Swansea Police Department in Massachusetts was hit by a virus called 'CryptoLocker' . ... It's not yet known how the virus got onto the police department's system, though the most likely explanation is that somebody opened an email attachment laced with the virus. Many previous CryptoLocker infections have come through bogus emails claiming to carry a delivery note from a courier company. The good news was that the virus didn't affect ... (view more)

It's not uncommon for an employee to plug a USB stick into a computer and unwittingly install malware on a work network. Unfortunately, that appears to have happened on the International Space Station. Eugene Kaspersky, the man behind the Kaspersky ... antivirus software, claims Russian astronauts brought USB sticks onto the space station. At least one of the sticks turned out to contain malware that infected computers on the station. Exactly when this happened hasn't been revealed, though it was probably before May last year, when the station switched to using Linux-based computers. Before that ... (view more)

Security researchers have uncovered a complex virus capable of reappearing even after it is thought to have been removed from a computer system. This so-called 'Red October' virus reportedly attaches itself to Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office ... software. The virus is named after the Tom Clancy novel about a Soviet submarine crew trying to defect. It's an appropriate moniker because the majority of computers infected by the virus are located in Russia and Eastern Europe (though there are victims in at least 37 other countries). The infections mostly affect computers used by government ... (view more)

Facebook has helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) track down the cybercriminals whose "botnet" is said to have caused losses worth more than $850 million. A total of 29 local FBI offices and departments worked on the case, along with a ... half dozen foreign police and crime agencies. Ten people have now been arrested in the United States, the United Kingdom, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, and Peru. (Source: fbi.gov ) Those accused of participating in the botnet scheme allegedly helped spread a worm virus called 'Yahos.' This virus reportedly self-replicated ... (view more)

With their FBI-supplied lifeline severed, early Monday morning tens of thousands of computers still infected with dangerous DNS Changer virus lost their ability to surf the Internet. However, it appears that a flurry of media reports warning ... computer users about the potential problem has prevented the shut-down from having a significant impact. DNS Changer was a virus that spread across the Internet back in 2009. Originating in eastern Europe, an FBI investigation resulted in the operation's termination in 2011. The servers involved were seized. However, the FBI voluntarily refrained from ... (view more)