FTO AUSTRALIA

A friend at my work opened an email at home and got a virus that has locked them out of their pc. It says that the only way to get back in is to email the person who sent them the virus and arrange payment of $30. They are told that their files are not affected but they need the password to unlock the computer.

My friend can start the PC in safe mode but can't get to DOS to try and fix it. It's running XP.

They are going to try the second option on this link tonight (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 110AAO42Kt) but if that doesn't work does anyone else know what they might be able to do?

The email addresses given that they are told to contact are

gloriajasam@yahoo.com
beluaf33@hotmail.com

Is there anyway to trace these or find out what other people did to get around this? Google doesn't help.

Linux boot disk.....

Yea agree with dstocks and I wouldn't send them anything as your just opening your self to having your account hacked to
Do police invole them self in these sorts of things
Ild be taking the computer to a pro pay the money get it fixed I no when I had nortans on one of my old computers and I got a torgan it would trace who sent it


Police may be able to get details from yahoo or what ever the email adress was threw im sure they have details of ip adresses used when loged into the account

If it were me I'd pull the infected hard drive out of the computer and plug it into another computer. Then you could browse through the contents of the infected hard drive and find the password. Then you could install anti-malware programs on the second computer to scan the infected hard drive.

Of course if you don't have access to another computer, or don't have the know how to be pulling them apart...

bduffman wrote:Linux boot disk.....

Then this ^

bduffman wrote:Police may be able to get details from yahoo or what ever the email adress was threw im sure they have details of ip adresses used when loged into the account

I doubt it. The emails are probably created using fake names by a couple of pricks living in Russia trying to make a few bucks. You can't really trace these gmail/hotmail/yahoo email accounts.

Lol dstock wrote to use disk not me lol stolen =) yep was my idea bad luck dstocks lol


Yea they can't trace names but depends how yahoo and hotmail and them work if they store ip adresses when you log in
And a ip adress has a name to it


They can do any thing theses days
Private number calls you go to cops and they can tell you the number that called you even though it was blocked ( altho they won't for privcy reason im sure but if it was due to threats they would follow it up )

My mob called 000 one time and they turned up at my house cause of the details with telstra having my home adress


Virus's are one thing black mail is another
You could always send them back a worse virus lol

bduffman wrote:Lol dstock wrote to use disk not me lol stolen =) yep was my idea bad luck dstocks lol

Hey WTF happened I'm sure I quoted dstocks haha.

http://www.password-changer.com/

Install & use it to create a bootable CD. Its fairly straight forward. Put CD in affected PC & follow the prompts to clear the password.

Credentials for when you install it:

Sounds like Ben has the right idea.

Failing all that though, try joining here and posting the issue. I have used these guys and they are brilliant.

I get all these types of dodgy jobs at work "Go see Ben, he'll be able to hack into that"

Had one just a few weeks back where a company sacked their sys admin guy, he cracked the sh*ts, dumped a mahoosive bunch of malicious code on the domain controller, then changed all the passwords on his way out. Had to h4xx0r into the domain... not so easy!

Ohh wow! From boobies to tech support. This club is awesome.

phunkydude wrote:Ohh wow! From boobies to tech support. This club is awesome.

welcome to FTO australia andrew

Thanks All for the tips. They ended up being able to reinstall Xp and that worked and they still have all their files. lucky.