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In case you penguin botherers were feeling left out, the folks over at iTWire bring us this little fun bit o' news:
Eset says it has found a Linux variant of the KillDisk malware used in the late 2015 attack on the Ukraine electricity system.
Like its Windows counterpart, the Linux version of KillDisk encrypts files, rendering the affected system unbootable. It asks for the same 222 Bitcoin (around US$278,000) ransom, but the encryption key used is neither stored locally or sent to a remote server, so even if the perpetrators are paid they have no way of reversing the process.
Eset says its researchers have found a weakness in the encryption method that makes decryption "possible, albeit difficult." Exactly how decryption can be performed was not disclosed.
It's nice to feel noticed but I could personally do without this particular kind of attention.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:51PM
Most of that is trivially changable. What wouldn't be is "does it need to be installed by root?" If it can be installed by an unprivileged user (even if only to corrupt their account), then the number of modes of install is horrendous. If it needs a root install, then there are a LOT fewer modes of infection.
The really interesting information included is that even were you to pay them, there's no way for them to decrypt your system.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.