Electronics

[voyager1980]

On 3/8/2014 happy housewife said:

On 3/8/2014 voyager1980 said:

On 3/8/2014 happy housewife said: I would normally say this was a scam - or an urban myth - but several months ago I had a file of nothing but recipes and i got this notice saying the file was gone from my computer and i had to pay to get it back. i did not pay - it was only recipes - and i did lose that file. Some people were on another website I go to saying they had lost much more important stuff - financial files etc. - and google tried to recover them to no avail,as far as I know. now i back up everything twice , once to the cloud and once to a USB plug in device, which fortunately my ASUS tablet has the capability to do. Not all tablets have a USB port. when my tablet had to go in for service and they wiped out everything I was easily able to reinstall it all from the cloud.

We always plugged our iPads right into the computer & backup & restore ever since we got them a few years ago.Anyway this thread about computers not tablets.

Thanks OP for posting on this.

how does an I pad plug into a computer since they don't have a USB port?

Using the cord that came w it that you use also for charging.Plug into the computer & back up the whole thing w iTunes in a blink of an eye.( Easy to restore too. )We always did it like that before we figured out iCloud.(:

[hckynut]

On 3/8/2014 In-x-s said:

That is totally different than the Cryptolocker.

Don't know anything about cryptolocker and at this point have no reason why I would want to learn about it. I was explaining what happened to me and what I did to fix it. My old brain only holds so much info and unless some leaves? There ain't anymore room left for things I don't need, yet anyways.

[Buck-i-Nana]

On 3/8/2014 Scotnovel said:

On 3/7/2014 Buck-i-Nana said:

Those of you saying it's a "scam" comes off sounding as though you don't believe it, but it is in fact happening as the fbi report dbd posted reports. The files are encrypted with a military grade encryption that so far nobody has been able to unencrypt. Paying the ransom is no guarantee they will unlock the files either.

Best thing is to be smart. Back-up regularly so if something like this does happen to your system, you haven't lost anything. Be very careful about clicking on ANY links even from people you trust and on sites that you trust.

Too many people are vulnerable because they have their user account on their computer set with full administrator rights. The smart thing to do is to set your account without admin rights, that way even if you click on a link that tries to install something on your computer it cannot be done because the authority is not there.

I said it was a scam but that doesn't mean I don't believe it happened. The definition of scam is a dishonest scheme or a fraud or a swiindle which is what I think this was. I do however believe there are a lot of ways that you can prevent computer scams and can keep from losing your data.

I know most of the folks saying "scam" are meaning it is a dishonest scheme, but my fear was some might not open the links posted and misinterpret the post to mean it is a hoax about an event that is not happening.