A colleague at work today had his computer shut down by the above virus. It is very serious. It encrypts your files and gives you 3 days to pay €300 or they are encrypted for good (because the key to unlock them is automatically destroyed). From research on the internet it appears that, unusually, the criminals behind the virus actually do decrypt the files if you pay them. It is also apparently easy enough to remove the virus but the problem is that the files remain encrypted and no one has been able to break the encryption. Payment has to be made in bitcoins which makes it virtually impossible to trace the perpetrators.
If you get an e-mail, even from an apparently trusted source, do not open any .zip attachment unless you are 100% -100%! - sure it is genuine. The e-mail my colleague opened that caused the problem appeared to come from within the office.

Thanks for the tip,I would sooner smash my laptop up than pay those parasites anything,having said that,i'm gonna install McAfee total protection that I got for half price in Peats.

Just make sure you dont open emails that contain a file that is usually zipped, the sender spoofs you into believing that it is coming from someone in your address book and looks legit but its not, most viruses are spread like this. If in doubt delete it and dont open the zipped file, or the very least download the file and scan it with your anti virus software BEFORE you open it, your anti virus software will be able to pick up a virus even in a zipped file!

never pay them to remove it!!!!!

get someone in to do it for you. if you pay,ur just giving ur credit card details away. they will take everything you have!!

i repair computers and have come across this problem a lot, its getting worse all the time.

most of the time your data can be easily retrieved!!!

best solution is remove hard drive, use another pc to get ur data back and wipe the the computer.

there is anti hijack software to remove it as well, but mush safer to wipe and reinstall

if you need any advice just ask.
cheers phil

Dont pay whatever you do, its a scam. They get the money and you are left with a locked computer.
There are ways to remove it by logging on in safe mode. Just get a computer repair place to take a look at it and stop viewing porn on your computer.

Good advice

you can also use windows 7 system restore - this keeps your data safe and will get rid of the malware or virus.
Best use system restore from a command prompt here is the link
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ie/windows-vista/start-system-res etc ...

I have found this save me a lot of time and once the restore is successful (does not work all the time but around 90% of the time its worked for me) you are back up and running and your data is in tact.
Also ensure that your anti virus software is up to date.

Just to reiterate the problem with the cryptolock virus - it is, I understand, quite easy to remove the virus. The problem is it is impossible to unlock the files once the encryption key is destroyed, which automatically happens after three days. In the office we had to go to back-up shadow files but it meant a day's work was lost.

yea, i just looked up the virus, its nasty, uses bank level encryption.

from what i can see at the min, theres no way to unlock the files.

you can remove the ransom-ware, but it leaves the files locked, as you said.

ill dig around the net and see if i can find you a solution.

Malwarebytes does a decent job in preventing this type of attack,

http://www.malwarebytes.org/lp/lp4/?gclid=CPX155S08boCFY5F2wodcRU etc ...

ill let you konw if i find anything.

If you have your anti virus software up to date this should be sufficient enough to prevent you from getting the Virus, Also if you have windows defender that will help as well.
Also make sure that if you get any emails saying that you have a package from UPS or Fed Ex then you know that this possibly is the virus.
Just be careful with what you open, especially if you don't know what the file is.

my bad for saying virus, old habits die hard.

its ransom-ware, your antivirus system may not pick it up. be careful.

Last week I got two e-mails that appeared to be from clients but they just did not seem right so I deleted them. Both clients confirmed they hadn't sent e-mails of the type I received - with a link. The danger is that when someone is busy or distracted they might easily open such an e-mail as my colleague did. You can't be too careful.

Btw from what I read it would take a quantum computer to unlock the encryption used by cryptolock. I don't think there are any of those operational yet.

This thread reminded me to download Avast antivirus as I had foolishly uninstalled it months ago when I wrongly blamed it for a game not starting (in fact the real reason it didn't start was I couldn't find where to click to start it).

So thanks john k. You good thing.

If you start getting emails that look like people you know then its time to change your email password.

Wakey wakey.
My emails don't look like people.
Should we only be getting emails from people we don't know?