Computer Disaster

Computers. It seems that we can't live without them anymore. We use them for work and for entertainment. To send business and private emails. To watch films and listen to the music. To research, to call friends and family, to store information, files, documents, photos. To do shopping. One device and sometimes all our live is in there. Translated into dots and bars, send somewhere into virtual world. Some of us are aware of the risks. Some not so much.

Over a week ago, my own computer was attacked by a malicious malware. I always considered myself careful. I have a really goodanti viruss (not very expensive but not cheap either). I regularly update it. I had a copy of all the data. As some years ago one of my external disks crashed, I've decided to store all in the cloud. I rarely download anything from the internet, never from the unknown sources. And yet... I've lost it all. CryptoLocker is the name of my Nemesis. It suddenly attacked one Friday morning when I was preparing one of my classes. The anti virus was on, I was working with the Word file. I haven't downloaded anything, was connected to the internet, but wasn't using it. The computer weirdly slowed down. I supposed it was an updated and didn't pay much attention. I went for a tea and when I was back with my steaming cup, that's what I saw in the middle of the screen, replacing my usual wallpaper:

There was no way to remove it and effectively all my files were encrypted. I turned off the internet connection: I have some minimal instincts of survival in the computer jungle. I tried file by file and all was blocked. Desperation started sneaking into my up to that moment easy and happy morning. The class was not prepared and it was starting in 40 minutes. I had to leave. No time to prepare, no way to use the computer or one of the files I had there for the emergency situation. Almost all my books were stored on the drive C. I was ready to cry. Or to kill someone. But who? In the last moment I grabbed one of not many physical teaching books (don't get me wrong I love books, have a huge library at home, but that's all fiction, not very useful in an English class with children), made some copies, grabbed a word game that could help a bit and run out. How I survived classes and focused on what I was doing instead of obsessing on my disastrous experience, I don't know. At night, back at home, I googled CryptoLocker. From my phone, duh! And what I found was more than discouraging. Of course I run the scan of the whole system. It found lots of things. Among them one, that Google confirmed as CryptoLocker. My computer didn't allow me to restore the previous version of the system (don't ask me why, that's beyond my understanding of the whole situation). Some of the files, allowed restoring the previous version but that was less than 10%. But I had the copy, right. In the cloud. What could go wrong with that? I naively went to OneDrive, recommended by Windows (please, don't ask me why I don't use Linux, unless you have time to visit me, install it, explain the differences and stand all kind of stupid questions I would ask for sure!). I went there with all the security, sure to quickly restore what was lost just to find out that it was all encrypted too. Yes, my safe cloud security version was lost too. I've never imagined (stupid me!) that the virus could recognise the cloud as just another disk. But it did. And it was all gone. Eaten by the cruel gods of the internet. Destroyed by some teenage hacker who just wanted some money for the new Yeezys (I'm so uncool, that I'm not even sure if that's how they're called or if that's the newest cool thing now). And that's the end of the story. You get this because my nice post about learning techniques, about different on-line resources and different free webs was lost. Hopefully, that might be educational too. Hopefully, if you don't have a copy on a disk/cloud whatever that is not connected to the internet you will work on it straight away. But in case you have a problem with CryptoLocker, here is the most helpful video and text I have found:
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/cryptolocker-virus-removal-how-decrypt-or-restore-encrypted-files-and-remove-334250 Also, my geeky friends informed me that the scan of the computer was not enough, as the anti virus failed at first. The virus, they said, is most probably still there. So I'm going now to format the disk. That will finish it off for sure.