Ransomware: software that encrypts your data, and then charges you for the decryption key. More and more of these trojan are creaping onto the internet recently.

PandaLabs points out that this is not the first time such a Trojan has made the rounds, citing PGPCoder as having a "long record on the ransomware scene." Ransom.A is another Trojan that presented to the user both a shorter time frame and a significantly lower bounty -- a file was to be deleted every 30 minutes unless the user paid up the ransom of $10.99. Finally, Arhiveus.A also encrypted user files, but instead of demanding money, instead demanded that the user purchase products from an online drug store.

There appears to be no information available regarding what happens when the user attempts to contact the address in the e-mail or whether the alleged decrypting software actually does the job it's supposed to do. Gostev places a strong warning on his blog, however, saying that if you find yourself infected with Sinowal.FY, Gpcode.ai, or any other type of ransomware, do not pay up "under any circumstances." It also doesn't appear as if there is currently any antivirus solution that can help decrypt the files once they are encrypted, although Gostev says that the Kaspersky Lab team is currently working on a decryption routine.

A 75-year-old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been given a scorching 40 Gbps internet connection — the fastest residential connection anywhere in the world. Sigbritt Löthberg is the mother of Swedish internet guru Peter Löthberg, who is using his mother to prove that fiber networks can deliver a cost-effective, ultra-fast connection. Sigbritt, who has never owned a computer before, can now watch 1,500 HDTV channels simultaneously or download a whole high definition DVD in two seconds. Apparently 'the hardest part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt's PC.'"

If you are fed up typing in your password everytime you open Outlook you might like this utility.

Simple run it and enter your password for the first time and it will start Outlook and log you in.

Put it on your desktop and replace your Outlook icon.

I'll post the source code after some testing. Tested with Outlook 2003 & 2007 on XP & Server 2003.

AutoLogon.zip (4.34 KB)

Edit: Here's the source for those having problems.

In some circumstances, you may need to test .NET web services outside of the localhost, but via the browser. By default, this is disabled in the machine.config. If you were to attempt to browse to a service from a different PC or to access a service under a host name, you'd receive a message stating: "The test form is only available for requests from the local machine." To circumvent this issue, open up the web.config and add:

<configuration>
    <system.web>
        <webServices>
            <protocols>
                <add name="HttpGet"/>
                <add name="HttpPost"/>
            </protocols>
        </webServices>
    </system.web>
</configuration>