securitypark.co.uk — The first piece of ransomware to use a sophisticated encryption algorithm, Gpcode.ac, was detected in January 2006 and used the RSA algorithm to create a 56-bit key. Since then, the author of Gpcode has released several increasingly complex variants of the virus and in June released Gpcode.ag, which used a 660-bit key.
Jul 24, 2006 View in Crawl 4
niczarJul 25, 2006
It's not the virus that's encrypted, it's the victim's DATA. And she has to pay the author to get the key to decrypt it back.
rideaurocksJul 25, 2006
"Even if they don't know the keys, If I were head of a security service of a country then I would have none whatsoever prohibition into torturing the hell out of a person that yeapordises key techfields and economy."Now say "nuclear wessels".
bobturboJul 25, 2006
This story is stupid. Nobody cares if antivirus companys can't unencrypt the data. The virus could have just deleted the data wow. That is like better than 1000000bit encryption. Back up your data. It is freakin simple and easy.
lnxaddctJul 25, 2006
A 660-bit key (assuming one computer would take 30 years to crack it) could be brute forced in 5 days using a 2048 node cluster of similar specs, and 2048 node clusters aren't exactly hard to come by for companies, in particular if they got a U.S. agency involved by arguing that it was a matter of national security. Hell, if they had access to a larger cluster (4096 nodes or even more) this could be done in no time. 660 bit keys haven't been considered secure for some time now.
catoutfitJul 25, 2006
PayPal froze my account once..
sundancekid503Jul 25, 2006
--SDSfmmdmm4398fj9wsv98j28fn87erv97qbvf71yq8bx vtr8swv9s8vcvin...............239er8jw98jc02r10====-03r928jfsfdgsdfg.s.///345t/3tg/gf341r][;'.c.2#$%1-------This comment has been hijacked and encrypted - Send me $200 if you wish to read it
obkenobiJul 25, 2006
Yes, through a series of transactions.
flyboypJul 25, 2006
None of us will ever see this on our desktops, e.g. a virus or worm. This kind of thing will be targeted at corporate data stores of high value.