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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

SCAM UPDATE- Ransomware on MAC’s and Facebook Like Warning


Ransomware on MAC’s. With all of the talk lately about ransomware, most of the targeted computers have run the Windows operating system. However, this week reports have been circulating that scammers have turned their attention to OS X on Apple MAC machines.


People who are affected include anyone who downloaded one of two installers of Transmission 2.90 between the hours of 11am PST on March 4 and 7pm on March 5. Security experts discovered that the Transmission BitTorrent client installer had a ransomware software called KeRanger attached. The ransomware even had a valid certificate which has since been revoked.


KeyRanger looks for your files, such as photos, music, spreadsheets, invoices, etc. Then after three days, it encrypts those files. According to WIRED Magazine, it looks for 300 different extensions from .doc to mp3 and .jpg to .txt. To unencrypt your files you pay one bitcoin worth a little over $400.


For more details go to:

WIRED:




On Facebook, watch out for Like-Farming. Like-farming is where a scammer posts an interesting story, or a posting that encourages readers to like it. The more likes a posting has the more likely it is to be seen in people’s feeds. After the post receives a certain number of likes, the scammer edits the post to include something malicious such as to promote a product, or attempt to get credit card information.


Some tricks the scammers use include emotional posts such as showing rescue animals or a medical story asking readers to like the post or comment to help the patient get well. Other schemes include asking you to like or share with the chance to win something. Brain teaser posts are often like-farming. Facebook pages can be part of a like-farming scheme. After enough likes, the scammer changes the content to spam or a scam. Then, anything the scammer adds to the page gets distributed to your News Feed.


To avoid like-farming just be careful before you like a post. Take a look at who made the post. Do you know them? If not don’t like. Check the content. Does it encourage you to like it? Does it make a promise if you like or share it? If it tries to pressure you to like it, don’t like it!


USA Today:




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