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DOCTOR finds the right cure... Andy Sharples and Helen Barrow check out the internet.
DOCTOR finds the right cure... Andy Sharples and Helen Barrow check out the internet.

Code cracker foils Russian criminals

Stephen Foster
30/ 5/2006

RUSSIAN criminals holding a Rochdale nurse to ransom have been foiled by a computer expert from Littleborough.

The Russians had hacked their way into the home computer system of Helen Barrow, a senior sister at Rochdale Infirmary and then issued an online ultimatum: pay up - or else!

The hackers had seized and encrypted very important files for her nursing degree studies and they demanded the purchase of items from a Russian pharmacy before they would release a password which would enable her to retrieve her work.

Ms Barrow of Riverstone Bridge, Littleborough, said: "I had a year's work for my nursing degree on the computer and I desperately needed everything back so I could complete my final thesis on time."

In desperation she turned to Andy Sharples, who runs his IT business from his home in Brown Lodge Street, Littleborough.

He said: "Ransomware is a relatively new phenomenon, where computer files are seized and encrypted with an instruction left demanding payment before a code is given allowing the files to be decrypted and opened for use again.

"If you don't pay you can't access files on your computer."

After hours searching the Internet, he found a security services website in the United States.

He said: "I got the virus off Helen's computer and emailed it to Chicago where they reverse engineered the virus and traced the 30-character password needed to decrypt the files and emailed it back to me.

"That meant I could recover Helen's files without any ransom being handed over."

A warning about the new ransomware threat has now been posted on the American website and reported in the Washington Post newspaper.

Helen said: It's unbelievable that something attacked my computer from Russia and was solved by a local computer expert using an American IT security specialist website.

"Happily, everything is now OK and I'm back on track with my degree work."


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Most recent 2 of 2 user comments

   This lady is lucky this was just a "ransomware" attack. If her PC had been stolen or simply the hard drive had corrupted then her files would have been lost forever. If it's important then BACK IT UP! Operating systems and applications can always be restored from their installation disks. Your personal work cannot.
Andy Etherington, Rochdale
1/06/2006 at 13:39
   These criminals are the scum of the earth. The English legal system will probably put them on IT courses because they came from troubled backgrounds, not to say give them assylum too..
Henry Kelly, Ireland (Expat)
31/05/2006 at 12:58
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