Cryptolocker is a piece of malware which is changing the nature of anti-virus detection.
The hack is making headlines after hitting the Massachusetts police’s computer network, but it has been around for a little while but its recent rising profile caught the attention of the UK’s National Crime Agency, which sent out a warning to SMBs about the virus this month.
The virus is ransomware which encrypts your computer files with such sophistication that they prove nearly impossible to unscramble, prompting the victim into paying the required two bitcoins (currently worth £832) to free them.
It is uncanny that this virus has arisen so soon after me reading sci-fi author Neal Stephenson’s 2011 novel Reamde, in which a present-day cyber thriller starts with Chinese hackers encrypting the Russian mafia’s data with a similar hack, demanding payment via a World of Warcraft-esque videogame where the virtual currency can be exchanged for real-world money.
But I wasn’t surprised, either. Stephenson has a knack for prescience, with such accurate predictions about technological innovations you come to suspect he’s a time traveller.
His debut novel Snow Crash features a virtual reality similar to Second Life and the internet, while he’s also written about digital libraries, mobile computing and even Google Earth well before these things were invented.
So anyone trying to stay ahead of the curve could do worse than pick up Stephenson’s next novel, whatever it may be.
