Romanian Man Kills Self and Son after Falling for Police Ransomware Scam

Hotforsecurity.com published news on 13th March, 2014 stating that a 36 year old Romanian man, Marcel Datcu, recently murdered his son, aged 4, and then took his own life after being duped by a 'Police ransomware scam'. The scammers threatened him with heavy fines and a long jail term for seeing online pornography. This is apparently the first murder-suicide caused by writers of malware.

Datcu hanged himself in the living room of his house along with his son Nicusor.

The man left behind a suicide note for his wife explaining the reason for his extreme step.

Sources investigating the case claimed that he had written under depression about his inability to pay a massive penalty after his PC became contaminated with a thread of Police ransomware. He penned in the suicide note that he had got a ransomware-generated warning asking him to pay a fine of 70,000 lei (approximately $21,600 or 13,000 Pound) or a face a jail term for 11 years.

Experts observe that the "Police ransomware" infected his computer after he visited porn websites that led to his receiving the weird warning.

However, Datcu thought it was a genuine warning by the Police due to which he became very desperate.

Experts observe that investigators involved in death probe are trying to find out if Romanian edition of Police ransomware truly asks for such a huge amount of money because this virus generally asks for a ransom of only about $200-$300.

Elaborating on the Police ransomware, security firm Bitdefender said that a strain of it (Police ransomware) called IcePol which capitalizes on the fright of people and sends fake police message in local language has victimized several Romanians.

The antivirus software company worked closely with Romanian police and discovered that cyber-criminals made approximately $160,000 in a single year from a Romanian server with Internauts of US paying most (in excess of $32,000) together with significant percentage ($2,500) contributed by Romanian PCs.

Experts have often recommended users not to pay especially when it comes to ransomware which simply blocks the screen of the computer. These kinds of threats can be effortlessly removed because there are special kits available to remove such infection.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/2/2014