When Bev Pengilly opened an email which she believed to be a speeding fine, she never expected it to destroy her computer along with most of her personal files.
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The email, which looked identical to one that could be sent by the Roads and Maritime Service (RMS), stated she had gone 10-20km/hr over the limit and had an attachment which claimed to be the speed camera photo.
In fact, the attachment contained a cryptolocker virus - a scam that is believed to have been created by a Russian man, which corrupts all of the computer’s data.
“It looked so real, and I’d not long before renewed my driver’s license and put my email address on the form which is why I wasn’t suspicious,” Mrs Pengilly said.
“It was pretty upsetting...I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
Mrs Pengilly isn’t the only one in the Forbes area that has been targeted by the scam.
Business developer at Complete Insite Solutions in Forbes Ken Wren said Mrs Pengilly was the third person in two weeks that has fallen victim to the virus.
“It is quite devastating what it can do,” he said.
“Everything is wiped and any external hard drives or computers connected to the same network are sought out by the virus and corrupted.”
Some people who have had the virus have lost all of their wedding and honeymoon photos.
Mr Wren said the emails do look realistic but that people should be wary of receiving emails from government companies as most notices are posted by mail.
“People should be aware that very few government companies send emails, they always use letters,” Mr Wren said.
“Unless you are 100 per cent positive of its authenticity, don’t open the email, delete it.”
While this is the first time the scam has been attached to the RMS, the same cryptolocker virus has surfaced before, attached to fake Telstra bills, Australia Post emails and the NSW Government’s Office of State Revenue.
Workshop manager at Complete Insite Solutions Luke Van Der Weiden said they have had varying success recovering the files corrupted by cryptolocker.
“We’ve gone from getting everything back to almost nothing,” he said.
“It’s a horrible virus to get because once it’s encrypted, it’s encrypted.”