FRD has been hacked

[Jim Nunn]

FRD ( Fred Dressler) , Fred is the designer of the USS Monitor with the full interior and it's a beautiful model. See Here

Fred has asked me to Post this notice. Fred was hacked and they stole all of his personal information, files and locked out his access to all of his computers. The ransom was to be paid in Bitcoin’s ($5000 per bitcoin). Fred has asked that if you see his model on any website please let him know by private message or you can PM me and I will forward information to Fred.

Fred has spent over 6 years getting this model as accurate and up to date as possible I believe the model it to be the most accurate model of the monitor available. The model was only sold by PMI and I was told by Fred that only about 30 kits were printed. Any models that are authorized in the future will have a bar code registered to the person who purchased the model.

Before you ask, I doubt that Fred will sell the files. At 1/100 scale they are printed on 12 x 20 paper and only the high end wide format printers can print that size. I checked into the cost to have just the 13 pages of parts to be printed and the cost would have been around $160. Printed kits could be available in the future assuming there is enough interest in the kits. Send inquiries via PM to Fred.

Jim Nunn

[airdave]

Most likely the system was not hacked...ransomware is picked up in email attachments and other places.
Its just randomly distributed malware that catches unsuspecting people.

These bastards don't want your files...they just want your money, and generally don't take anything, they just encrypt stuff.
Often the process may involved permanently damaging or deleting files,
so paying the ransom won't help you get anything back.

Tell your friend there are so many ways to get around ransomware now.
You could start by contacting the company whose antivirus/antimalware program you pay for.
if you use free software, they still have solutions.

There are a number of free softwares that focus on and remove ransomware.
Just do a search for "ransomware fixes" or "removal" and start hunting.
There is a ton of stuff out there to help

Try this info from Comodo (a trusted company...I have used Comodo security software myself)
https://enterprise.comodo.com/forens...ransomware.php

or

https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Ransomware

But you will always be directed to get one of the ransomware removal applications.
And there are quite a few.
All the major antivirus/anti-malware softwares also deal with ransomware since its not a new thing any more.

if all else fails, take it into a computer repair shop...they can fix it, for a fee, of course.
But no where near what the evil hackers are asking.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On a similar note, I recently added McAfee Real Protect to my system.
While not being the biggest fan of McAfee programs, I regularly use their Stingers.
https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en...s/stinger.html
Stingers are small free to download malware and virus scanners that use the most up to date virus signatures.

Now, the latest McAfee Stinger comes bundled with Real Protect for you to install...and I did.
Real Protect is completely free and isn't an overblown anti-malware program.
It doesn't install a massive database or have to do constant database updates.

It just scans and then takes of a snapshot of your "clean" system.
Then it watches for suspicious changes and known identifiers of malware
...anything that happens, it gives you alerts and tells you what to do.

Real protect isn't going to help you with RansomWare.
The only way to avoid ransomware hacks, is to NOT open unknown email attachments.
Be extra careful downloading and opening anything...think real hard "do i know what this is?" "do i know who it came from?" "was I expecting this?"

Often, specialized emails are used (with attachments)...sometimes these emails appear to come from someone in your address book.
Just check the return email/ID before you touch them.
You'll see a name you identify, but their return email will be wrong.

Sometimes the email appear to "wrong numbers"...as if someone sent mail to the wrong place.
I regularly see the "responding to the job" email with an attached "Resume".
People are curious to look at the resume...thats the bait.
But as soon as you open that attachment, your system is compromised.

Best method of defense is to assume everything is malicious and don't take any chances with anything!

[Rubenandres77]

What Dave said.

Plus, since it is considered a crime in several parts of the world,
he may get some help or directions from the local police service.
Nowadays with the increasing number of cases, special divisions
in informatics and technology have been implemented by police
to help solve those cases. Even if they can't directly recover the
information from the hard drive, they may guide him to someone
who can, depending on the specific kind of ransomware used.

Very hard situation. Let's hope FRD regains access to his files.
It is bad to lose one's work in this way... In this avoidable way.
And it also serves a lesson why it is useful to have several
backup options. I personally use two external drives, sometimes
use cloud-based storage, and oftehn mail many of the work files
to my alternate email. And even the most important files I burn to CDs,
so that there's always a recovery option.
Call me paranoid, but no effort is too small to protect one's hard work.

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Sad to hear this news. I agree with previous posts, I'd like to add this only shows how useful it is to fully backup all (and I mean ALL) of your files on your computer to an external (portable) disk which is mostly detached from your system and kept safe somewhere else. I monthly update my personal 2.5" portable HDD's - and then again I make a backup from these backups on to a second set of similar HDD's. So I have all my files threefold. At least.

For such dumps I use Carbon Copy Cloner, which meticulously makes a 1 on 1 copy of a disk to another one. You can even control which files you do and which you don't want to copy and whether the program has to trash previous versions of the file or keep them in a vault. I really recommend this.

[John Bowden]

I wrote a batch program that dumps my Download, Picture and Documents folders into a dated folder to an external hard disk every night........... I manually delete all dated folders older than 3 days and keep an eom dated folder on another separate hard drive.

I might lose a file by only keeping an eom folder but it's way better than losing all my files like when my system crashed suddenly..........

[sreinmann]

My old job had a comp infected this way too. I just sucked it up and tossed the HD in the trash and reimaged the PC. Because of quarterly backups we only lost a few weeks of data and hard copies of what was missing filled in that.

Terrible thing, but I agree with what’s been said above.

[gotham]

And the moral is, always back up important files external to computer - USB drive, external hard drive, or Cloud.

[redwolf28386]

His PC probably just has ransom ware on it, all he should have to do is to reboot in safe mode and then run his antivirus, or install a better antivirus via usb stick ( I prefer Malware bytes)

[hrogers]

I also received a scam mail that my mail system was hacked and the want
Bit coins otherwise the will release a virus on my computer.
The mail I received is from the same mail account I use on my mails so it look like it was sent from my own email. If I go to my sent items - there is no mails there that indicated that any emails was sent from my account.
I think they use another kind of mail system where they just add your mail address in it and then it look like it as sent from your account.
According to the scammers they hacked my mail system and they will release a virus program to my PC. And that they could see i do have porn pictures, I know there is none on my pc,
I just laugh to myself and I know they could not hacked my computer.
I open my mails from the online website - I do not have any mail program om my pc to open my current mails.
If anyone else received similar mails, just ignore it - you can locate from where the emails was sent to you - Just go to the mail that was sent open it - go to properties and look up the IP address from where it was sent.