http://www.lep.co.uk/news/health/nhs-computers-down-after-virus-patients-told-to-avoid-hospital-and-walk-in-centre-unless-absolutely-necessary-1-8540798 Just spoke with someone at our local hospital and servers ate all being shut down - confirmed

F-Secure is warning computer users about a significant increase in sightings of the Locky ransomware, typically spammed out posing as invoices or profiles for positions at your company. Here is how researcher Päivi Tynninen described the scale of the malware campaign: Yesterday, Tuesday, we saw two new campaigns with a totally different magnitude: more than 120,000 spam hits per hour. In other words, over 200 times more than on normal days, and 4 times more than on last week’s campaigns. If you make the mistake of opening one of the ZIP files attached to the spammed out messages, you will find a JavaScript file inside. Clicking on it would be a big mistake and lead to your computer being hit by the notorious Locky ransomware. Before you know it, you may have lost access to your files and find yourself being blackmailed for their safe return. Stay safe folks. Always be suspicious of unsolicited attachments.

Security researchers have put a pompous computer criminal in their rightful place after releasing the decryption keys for their ransomware. Lawrence Abrams of Bleeping Computer writes that the ransomware, which was released last week, encrypts users' files using AES encryption, appends the .LOCKED extension to all files, and demands that victims pay a fee of 0.5 BTC (approximately US $210) in exchange for the decryption key. All things considered, a pretty standard piece of malware... "You'll never be able to find me. Police will never be able to find me. Go ahead and try them if you like, but don't expect your data back. They will be concerned about helping the community, not with helping you meet your deadline. If they say they need to keep your desktop for a few days, well lol, you probably won't be seeing your machine again soon, let alone your data. I've been doing this for five years now and haven't been caught yet." "...Just be thankful that it wasn't worse. I could have asked for more money. I could have been working for ISIS and saving that money to behead children. I could have been a mean SOB and just destroyed your data outright. Am I those things? No. I just need the money to live off of (true story) and don't care at all about the hacker 'community'. So there isn't anyone you will be protecting by sacrificing yourself. I'll just encrypt more people's data to make up for the loss." Full article

Mac users hit by rare ransomware attack, spread via Transmission BitTorrent app Mac owners who use the open source Transmission BitTorrent client are being warned that a version of the installer was distributed via the app's official website, infected with a new family of ransomware. It is believed that hackers managed to compromise the installer of Transmission version 2.90 on its download site on Saturday, March 4, in order to spread ransomware that researchers at Palo Alto Research have dubbed "KeRanger." The outcome is that if you were unfortunate enough to install Transmission 2.90 onto your Mac, your computer may now be the digital equivalent of ticking time bomb. Because KeRanger waits three days before awaking, encrypting your documents and data files, contacting its command-and-control servers, and demanding a one bitcoin (approximately $400) ransom be paid for your data's safe return. According to the researchers, the KeRanger malware also attempts to encrypt Time Machine backup files, no doubt in an attempt to make it harder for victims to recover their precious data without paying the extortionists. And don't imagine that OS X's built-in Gatekeeper protection would have saved you, as it appears that the poisoned KeRanger app was signed with a valid Mac app development certificate. A message on the official Transmission website confirms the threat to users, and advises that they "immediately upgrade" to version 2.92: