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Warning, I was scammed

E

Eldon (WA)

Well-known Member
All the pictures and files on my laptop have been encrypted and are being held for nnalert ransom. The only thing that I can think of that did it was I opened an email that was supposedly from UPS which stated "failure to deliver parcel" and when I opened it, it said to click on the link for further explanation....which was full of garbage. Evidently that garbage was code to encrypt all my files....what a mess! Somehow they knew I was getting a delivery from UPS yesterday which I did get.....
 
To the best of my knowledge, the UPS would have no reason to email you, or even have your email address.
Sorry for your loss. Don't fall for the scam. Hold your horses for a while, and see if a reputable service technician can recover your files.
 
(quoted from post at 14:14:02 03/14/17) To the best of my knowledge, the UPS would have no reason to email you, or even have your email address.
Sorry for your loss. Don't fall for the scam. Hold your horses for a while, and see if a reputable service technician can recover your files.
Click to expand...

I found this link on the web....doesn't look good. I had tons of pictures and my business files also...

https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-your-personal-files-are-encrypted-virus/
 
Too late for you now, but regular backups of your system are the best defense. Along with being very careful what links you click on and not running as an administrator user.

Some of those ransomware sites can be decrypted without paying the ransom, do a bit of research on how.
 
(quoted from post at 14:14:02 03/14/17) To the best of my knowledge, the UPS would have no reason to email you, or even have your email address.
Sorry for your loss. Don't fall for the scam. Hold your horses for a while, and see if a reputable service technician can recover your files.
Click to expand...

People can sign up with UPS and FedEx for delivery notifications. UPS even has a pay service where you can see where your package is on the route in real time. Personally, that's going way overboard for me.
 
If its any consolation, without backups it could have just as easily been wiped out with a failed hard drive.

Please folks back up your pictures and business files. Not that's a good idea, I'll do that soon, now! A 100$ external hard drive will hold
everything a person has on their machine these days. Even an older 50$ one will do most folks.
 
Know it's too late but never never click on an email link no matter what it is or who it's from. If it's something you would like to see go to the web site directly in your browser.

That shipping email has been around for a while and they are just fishing. Have seen them supposedly from all the carriers not just UPS. Got a friend of mine that knows better but at least he had a recent backup.

Back up anything you feel you can't loose regularly to an external USB hard drive. With backup files you can restore the OS and recover without paying anybody anything.
 
Pull the battery out and let it sit for a
while, even over night. In many cases that
will take care of it. Had to do that with my
tablet a while back. If that don't work you
can likely get it cleaned up at a computer
store.
 
That fake UPS/Fedex delivery notification has been around for a long time.

It doesn't come because you were expecting a package, it goes out as random spam.

Did you try doing a system restore? That allows you to go back to a time before it happened. If you can't access it, try safe mode.

Another warning about Email... When you start getting slammed with annoying spam, especially the offensive kind, and there is an "unsubscribe" link... NEVER touch it! That is just another link. At best it will just notify the sender that the spam has landed in an active mail box and they will send more, at worst it will be a virus!
 
Don't know if it'll help at this point, but you could try downloading the free version of Malwarebytes and run the program. Hopefully that can fix the problem for you. There main web page is here:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/

Something I never noticed on their site before is that they now mention .....eh, is easier to copy-n-paste:
[i:bdaadaa24d]Our engineers have now made your best defense against advanced threats even better. Malwarebytes 3.0 now offers four malware-fighting modules:

Anti-malware
Anti-ransomware
Anti-exploit
Malicious website protection

You have all the best Malwarebytes detection, protection, and malware-removal in one tight package. Stop paying for your old, clunky antivirus.[/i:bdaadaa24d]

Maybe I should try to update the version I have...as well as to re-do my hard drive backup.
 
I don't know who it was that got mine last time,but Chrome and Explorer still worked. It only got Edge. I rebooted the router and turned off the computer for a while and it all came back alright.
 
Dang I hat to hear that. Those bottom feeders should have a long jail sentence in a foreign country. That same thing happened to me. I did not pay the 500.00 they wanted. I lost some pictures is about all. I had to start over, reload everything. The computer guy felt sorry for me he installed a backup on my computer for free. I hope you can get your information back. Stan
 
This is not nearly as uncommon as you would think. You can pay the ransom, which it typically low enough to manage, especially if you have valuable pictures and the like that can't be replaced. But, once the computer is unlocked, take it immediately in to get what you want off it and wipe the system clean.
 
I posted around three weeks ago that my phone got hacked.
Nothing as far as email or anything like that would work and my
password wouldn't work either. I didn't loose anything but it
was a major pain. I had to have a youngin help me reset
everything because I had no idea what happened. Since then my
wife installed true caller on my phone. It is supposed to
detect spam calls. I do not know if it works for email or if
there is a version for email. So.far I have been OK. Sorry to
hear of your losses. That sucks !
 
I have had them also. learned a couple years back when it wiped out my SD chip that was in my computer. I store all my pics there so it isn't in a position to be corrupted any more.
Our computer guru was able to save some of them off the chip.
Loren
 
(quoted from post at 14:08:59 03/14/17) All the pictures and files on my laptop have been encrypted and are being held for nnalert ransom. The only thing that I can think of that did it was I opened an email that was supposedly from UPS which stated "failure to deliver parcel" and when I opened it, it said to click on the link for further explanation....which was full of garbage. Evidently that garbage was code to encrypt all my files....what a mess! Somehow they knew I was getting a delivery from UPS yesterday which I did get.....
Click to expand...
Just out of curiosity how much was being demanded to 'liberate" your files? And which of the ransom schemes was it?
 
(quoted from post at 14:08:59 03/14/17) All the pictures and files on my laptop have been encrypted and are being held for nnalert ransom. The only thing that I can think of that did it was I opened an email that was supposedly from UPS which stated "failure to deliver parcel" and when I opened it, it said to click on the link for further explanation....which was full of garbage. Evidently that garbage was code to encrypt all my files....what a mess! Somehow they knew I was getting a delivery from UPS yesterday which I did get.....
Click to expand...
Decryption exist for the known encryption algorithms. Maybe you could try one of these.
 
Happened to me a couple of years ago.
I was NOT going to pay them!
So I formatted my hard drive.
Lost 20 years worth of stuff.
But somehow I've learned to live without
it. Which means I must not have needed it.
 
I get those can'y deliever all the time. Never open them as I have nothing to be delievered.
 
Our business records and data are on computers that are NOT hooked to the internet in any way. It makes getting programs that will work without Internet updates a PAIN but it is worth it to not worry about getting hacked.

I would like to personally HANG any of these hackers that we could catch!!!!!

I would not pay them a DIME!! I would take it to a computer guy and make sure your files are truly encrypted. Many just say they are when the real records are not. IF they are encrypted them just start over and learn what not to do in the future.
 
That's great advice! I keep my old Windows XP machine next to the new one, but there is physically no way for that PC to connect to the internet. The modem requires a cord. I could use a USB antennae, but obviously I won't. Just have to keep in mind that any flash or hard drive I put into an internet computer and then into the XP machine does run the slight risk of contaminating the XP machine.

I also have multiple hard drives that are never connected to a PC unless to add files to them, and even then only when not connected to online.
 
I have had it happen to me. Cryptolocker ransomware. There
was no decrypter that would work.

Fortunately I had a very recent full backup. All I had to do was
restore my computer.

One thing I noticed was that it did not do anything to my
accounting files, probably because that program was running
(open) when the ransomware started. It could not override the
file lock.
 
Call the local sheriff. He will send Barney Fife over with his big gun, to scare off the bad guys.

Our laws and law enforcement are way way way behind the criminals. But it is OK. Because, our elected officials are too
busy fighting each other to deal with this nationwide internet criminal issue.
 
JD, If a criminal broke into your office and stole, you would call the law enforcement authorities.
But if they break into your computer it is just too bad, so sad, I got to be careful. No one to call.

Our government has let us down on internet security. Too busy fighting over trivial crap.
 
(quoted from post at 19:37:21 03/14/17) Do they actually give you your stuff back when you pay the money? Honesty amongst thieves!
Click to expand...

Who knows...another reason I am not paying. They want .2 nnalert
 
"Somehow they knew I was getting a delivery from UPS yesterday which I did get..... "

NO they didn't know, they sent out about 57 million emails knowing that 6% or so are suckers like you and would open it.

TOTAL co-inkydink that you happened to actually have a UPS delivery in that time frame.
 
(quoted from post at 19:50:19 03/14/17) "Somehow they knew I was getting a delivery from UPS yesterday which I did get..... "

NO they didn't know, they sent out about 57 million emails knowing that 6% or so are suckers like you and would open it.

TOTAL co-inkydink that you happened to actually have a UPS delivery in that time frame.
Click to expand...

Can you back your claims up? Why have I never gotten an email like that on any other day before?? If the Russians can hack the US government, I'm sure someone can hack the UPS....
 
I get emails darned near every day "from" UPS or FedEx about "undeliverable packages" and simply delete them, as you SHOULD have.

Have you EVER got a legit email from UPS or FedEx about an undeliverable package?

Nope, don't think so? (Or, if yes, let's hear the story!)

It's a common scam and you fell for it, IMHO. I'm not criticizing or chastising you, just telling it like it is.

For your safety and convenience you might want to GOOGLE "UPS delivery scam".
 
Also, you can check out the "return path" of a potentially suspicious email BEFORE opening it.

It would be interesting to see where your "UPS" email actually came from.
 
The hacker didn't know you had a package coming; they send out these messages by the thousands, knowing all they need is for a couple victims to bite. I fell for one myself when I was expecting a delivery that didn't arrive. Fortunately the trojan "PDF" payload was harmless to my Linux system.

As others have said, some of these encryption schemes have been broken and tools are available to recover your data. Otherwise, you have to decide if your files are worth the ransom. Encryption scheme hackers are meticulous about decrypting files once a ransom is paid; their whole scheme is dependent on their victims trusting them enough to pay ransom.
 
Can you back your claims up? Why have I never gotten an email like that on any other day before?? If the Russians can hack the US government, I'm sure someone can hack the UPS....
Click to expand...

The fact that you believe that they actually knew that you were getting a package just proves how gullible you are! You are exactly the kind of person that they look for! As long as they're are dumb people to fall for these scams the scams will continue! When will people WAKE UP?
 
Eldon,

Sorry this happened to you.

Others: Lighten up. Sure we shouldn't click on random links but between Amazon and mail-order tractor parts, there's probably a huge percentage of us that are actually getting a UPS package on a given day. This makes us much more likely to click on said link (but don't do it!).

The real problem is running your computer with sufficient privilege so that clicking on a link has the authority to do this to your computer. A properly designed and set up operating system would not allow this. It's fairly easy to set up a Linux or Mac OS-X box to be relatively immune to the known scams today. Unfortunately configuring a Windows box in this manner makes it just about impossible to get any work (or browsing) done.

Thanks for the reminder, my backups are probably overdue.

Bob
 
Eldon I am not a computer guru and know you been with us (YT) for a long time. What I do is go to the actual site of ups or fedex and I can track my package no email involved. Ebay does it for you in most cases. Same with other sites go directly to it like pay pal NOT THROUGH A EMAIL LINK.
 
(quoted from post at 03:10:43 03/15/17)
Can you back your claims up? Why have I never gotten an email like that on any other day before?? If the Russians can hack the US government, I'm sure someone can hack the UPS....
Click to expand...

The fact that you believe that they actually knew that you were getting a package just proves how gullible you are! You are exactly the kind of person that they look for! As long as they're are dumb people to fall for these scams the scams will continue! When will people WAKE UP?
Click to expand...

Just wait, your time will come...it's called karma...
 
(quoted from post at 06:16:46 03/15/17) Eldon I am not a computer guru and know you been with us (YT) for a long time. What I do is go to the actual site of ups or fedex and I can track my package no email involved. Ebay does it for you in most cases. Same with other sites go directly to it like pay pal NOT THROUGH A EMAIL LINK.
Click to expand...

Well this was kind of the perfect storm. I had just received two boxes of small items, one box was all beat up and open. I was mad about that wondering what was damaged or missing from the shipment. The email came almost simultaneously as when I got the packages. I thought maybe they found something that fell out and were trying to contact me (the shipper had my email address, they could have gotten it from them). I had never gotten an email from UPS before so maybe my guard was down. Anyway it's done, it's over and I will deal with it. For people to call you stupid and a sucker....well I wish them luck in the future, cause their time is coming. Look what was all over the news this morning.....
 
My son works for a major company in security. He says if you're running Windows, Microsoft Security Essentials works very well and it is free.
Dave
 
Just wait, your time will come...it's called karma...
Click to expand...

No, My time won't come! I don't fall for scams! Never have, Never will, PERIOD! I have seen ever trick in the book and I don't trust anyone! I know a scam when I see one! Have fun falling for your next scam!
 
That's $251.31 US dollars. If you are backed up and don't mind loosing some pictures and stuff just wipe the hard drive and start over. Sorry this happen to you.

Greg
 
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