Windows users need to be particularly careful at the moment not to open any attachments that you are not expecting. Particularly if they come pretending to be from your bank, PayPal or a delivery company. Be doubly careful if you are sent a PDF document or ZIP file that you are not expecting, as although the attachment may show as a PDF icon, the virus has been seen disguised as a PDF.

The main purpose of this virus is to find all of your documents and photos and encrypt them. After which, they can only be opened if you have a key.

When you try to open a document after being infected you will be alerted that you must pay $300 for your files to be unencrypted so you can access them.

The key will only exist for a limited amount of time (4 days), and the only way to get hold of the key is to pay the people who infected your machine. If you don’t do this before the time runs out, your documents will be encrypted forever and unaccessible.

At the time of writing there is no antivirus protection against this. So please ensure you have a backup of your important files, and that this backup is not usually connected to your PC. The Virus will encrypt anything it finds accessible on network drives, and removable disks when attached.

Do not open any document unless you know where it has come from, and only install software from reputable companies.

More information and some steps to carry out for protection can be found at Cryptolocker: How to avoid getting infected and what to do if you are.

Please comment below if you have been infected or know someone who has.