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"Anime" Malware Locks Your Files Unless You Play A Game

P

ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
https://kotaku.com/anime-malware-locks-your-files-unless-you-play-a-game-1794120750

In 2017, even malware is anime. Anyone affected by the new malware Rensenware, named after the anime-style game Touhou Seirensen (Undefined Fantastic Object), has to score over 200 million points on the game's ”lunatic" level or they won't be able to access their computer files.
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zyhycrppecwlpp23qlel.png


A Korea-based undergraduate student originally developed Rensenware as a joke. It's a pun on the name Touhou Seirensen, a 2009 Japanese shooting game. Affected users saw an anime sailor girl pop up on their dashboard. ”Minamitsu ‘The Captain' Murasa encrypted your precious data like documents, musics, pictures, and some kinda project files," she says. ”How can I recover my files? That's easy. You just play TH12 ~ Undefined Fantastic Object and score over 0.2 billion in LUNATIC level. This application will detect TH12 process[es] and score automatically."
Click to expand...

”I was bored," its creator told me over e-mail. The creator fell asleep after releasing the joke onto GitHub, and when he woke up, he learned through Twitter that his malware had spread. ”I realized that it [had] become a huge accident and [was] confused," he said. He's not sure how many were affected, but added that, in the programming process, he'd accidentally infected himself. When asked whether he could score 0.2 billion himself, the creator said, ”Uh, oh.... nope."

After malware aficionados traced Rensenware to him, he immediately designed software that neutralized Rensenware and uploaded it to GitHub along with an apology. In it, he explained, ”I'd like to apologize [to] everyone for making [them] shocked, or annoyed. Ransomeware is definitely kind of highly-fatal malware, but I made it. I made it for [a] joke, and just laughing with people who like Touhou Project Series."
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H2eVxy5keM
 
S

SomTervo

Member
After malware aficionados traced Rensenware to him, he immediately designed software that neutralized Rensenware and uploaded it to GitHub along with an apology. In it, he explained, “I’d like to apologize [to] everyone for making [them] shocked, or annoyed. Ransomeware is definitely kind of highly-fatal malware, but I made it. I made it for [a] joke, and just laughing with people who like Touhou Project Series.”
Click to expand...

Well thank fuck for that
 
P

patapuf

Member
Bwahaha, That's almost more evil than asking for money.

I can only imagine some desperate dude trying to beat a bullet hell game on Lunatic to get his files back and never getting close.
 
J

Jintor

Member
hahaha i'm glad i can laugh at this because it was just a practical joke that got out of hand

i'm imagining the movie tho
 
S

Steiner84

All 26 hours. Multiple times.
lol imagine your one of the best players of that game and companies hire you to unlock their systems.
 
Y

Yokai

Member
Thankfully he made a counter agent. Unfortunately, since it is open source on github, there will be variations popping up that will be different enough to not be affected by the cure. Anyway, be careful with your downloads everyone!
 
D

Diablos

Member
Watched some YouTube vids, game looks like a pain in the arse to play. Great music though.

Hopefully there's a way around this besides playing.
 
NoKisum

NoKisum

Member
patapuf said:
Bwahaha, That's almost more evil than asking for money.

I can only imagine some desperate dude trying to beat a bullet hell game on Lunatic to get his files back and never getting close.
Click to expand...
Or someone who keeps getting close, but is always just a few points shy of the goal.
 
tkscz

tkscz

Member
How did so many people download it? I mean, it was dumb for the guy to upload it, but I doubt he expected anyone to actually download it. How did it spread so fast?

Lebon14 said:
Yes and he released a fix himself.

And It's Touhou Project, a shmup series (mainly) by Zun. Not a fucking anime.
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If it looks like a duck
 
J

Jetman

Member
Hey, maybe he's just trying to create a market/demand for Touhou pro's. If he hadn't created an anti virus for it, a business would have to hire Touhou experts to high score and unlock their stuff.

He could give some GAF'ers work if he created some malware that only pro's on this board could unlock. Imagine a virus where you had to play Winnie the Poohs Homerun Derby and beat Christopher Robin in under an hour.
lol
 
G

GunBR

Member
He’s not sure how many were affected, but added that, in the programming process, he’d accidentally infected himself. When asked whether he could score 0.2 billion himself, the creator said, “Uh, oh…. nope.”
Click to expand...

This is amazing
 
O

Ordinaryundone

Member
I'm now imagining some businessman in Korea getting hit by this and has been working a week straight trying to master Touhou before his boss finds out what happened.
 
B

Barrylocke

Member
He WOULD use Unidentified Fantastic Object as the ransom game. Couldn't be nice and choose Mountain of Faith or Ten Desires or something.
 
L

Linkstrikesback

Member
tkscz said:
How did so many people download it? I mean, it was dumb for the guy to upload it, but I doubt he expected anyone to actually download it. How did it spread so fast?



If it looks like a duck
Click to expand...

Until recently, long story short, getting the touhou games outside of Japan was difficult, if not impossible and very expensive. Probably a lot of torrenting going on.
 
M

MKIL65

Member
Barrylocke said:
He WOULD use Unidentified Fantastic Object as the ransom game. Couldn't be nice and choose Mountain of Faith or Ten Desires or something.
Click to expand...

People would still fail to complete that, even on Easy mode. And EVEN with Marisa B.

Especially given that Kanako's final spellcard is more difficult on Easy than Lunatic, thanks ZUN.
 
H

HiddenWings

Member
Linkstrikesback said:
Until recently, long story short, getting the touhou games outside of Japan was difficult, if not impossible and very expensive. Probably a lot of torrenting going on.
Click to expand...

It still kind of is. Only one of the games is on Playism iirc, and not even the most recent one. If you want them, you still have to import CDs from Japan.
 
B

Barrylocke

Member
HiddenWings said:
It still kind of is. Only one of the games is on Playism iirc, and not even the most recent one. If you want them, you still have to import CDs from Japan.
Click to expand...

I'm still annoyed about how that went. I guess it's nice to say that I was able to spend money on an official Touhou title, even if the damn thing wasn't released in English so I had to use my old translation patch anyways. Got to make my first OT too.
 
W

WarRock

Member
He’s not sure how many were affected, but added that, in the programming process, he’d accidentally infected himself. When asked whether he could score 0.2 billion himself, the creator said, “Uh, oh…. nope.”
Click to expand...
ahahahahahahahaha
 
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