Boy was I ticked off.. lol Of course, never, ever, ever would I pay the sleezy weasels to release my info. I lost so many files and research files that had not been backed up in two weeks or so. Ergo, I learned my lesson.. BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT FILES.. If the hackers had been here I would probably have broken a few heads over it. Some of the research was irreplaceable and I'm still looking to replace that, today. A bit of it was online archeology books. Rare and out of print.. Some of it was precious photos that can not be replaced... sighhhh..

I think it was picked up from a gaming site while my 10 year old grand-daughter was surfing around.. Not sure though. At the time, about 5 people used my PC when I wasn't working. Kids, older children of mine and occasionally other family. One of them downloaded a zip file (supposedly music) that could have been how it was done.. It's anyone's guess at this point.

I don't keep important things on the PC.. like banking or monetary things.. phone numbers etc.. Still, I changed all the PW's as soon as my oldest son got me back online. He's an IT security wiz at things like that.

This particular virus might be new but they have been doing variations of it for years.. That is why I moved it upfront. I don't want others to lose important files like I did.

Thanks Much..

Lynda

: It is a matter of perspective what is considered to be new and
: what is not. If you check out the thread on the forum:
: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/559463/keyholder-support-and-discussion-topic/
: it has been started on the 11th December and it was deemed so

: new then that even the experts knew almost nothing about
: it.

: A virus can be considered fairly new as long as few people
: know about it, its spreading is still accelerating, and
: especially as long as no viable solution has been yet found
: against it. The KEYHolder virus fulfil all of these
: conditions, and as far as I know nobody has found a viable
: procedure to restore the encrypted files.

: There have been earlier versions of ransomware but those have
: not been as effective as this one, and those have been also
: cracked by Nathan, and the files could be restored. This is
: different and much more dangerous, since there is no
: defence against it yet.