"ransomeware", not in OED3; GBooks 2005--

[Geoffrey Steven Nathan]

FWIW I received a warning yesterday from our local tech support listserv that an actual instance had been found on campus. The person who sent the message spelled it with two e's:

"I just wanted to give you a heads-up that we've recently been affected by the new "Cryptolocker" ransomeware. One of our client machines (on which the user had non-admin privileges) was infected with this and was successful at encrypting a vast majority of her files locally, as well as encrypting most of the files on any network share she had access to on our Windows domain."

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.


----- Original Message -----

> From: "Dan Goncharoff" <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, November 5, 2013 11:29:55 AM
> Subject: Re: "ransomeware", not in OED3; GBooks 2005--

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: "ransomeware", not in OED3; GBooks 2005--
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Confused -- is it "ransomware", "ransomeware" or both?

> DanG

> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
> wrote:

> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject: "ransomeware", not in OED3; GBooks 2005--
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Should be findable earlier than 2005, since Wikipedia says the
> > first
> > such program was 1989.
> >
> > A term I had not heard before, until my local computer products
> > store sent me an email warning which included as part of its advice
> > about "prevention" to "Stay safe with an updated, lightweight and
> > trusted ANTI-VIRUS". (A come-on for ransome-ransomeware? To be
> > fair, they did not hype that, and offered additional no-cost advice
> > for both prevention and cure.)
> >
> > For discussion, see the Wikipedia article. Under "History", that
> > article claims that "The first known ransomware was the 1989
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_%28trojan_horse%29>"AIDS" trojan
> > (also known as "PC Cyborg") written by Joseph Popp", but the
> > usually
> > useless Google Book search using dates gives me nothing earlier
> > than
> > 2005 -- http://tinyurl.com/k5ff2wb or
> >
> > http://issue-fix.com/windows/ransomware-removal.php?sq={QueryString}&mt=b&kw=%2Bransom%20%2Bware&ad=69&src=ggl
> > That page's definition is curiously worded: "Ransomware is
> > ransomware that locks your computer by hampering its interface,
> > blocking other programs or encrypting files (a process that makes
> > the
> > files unusable until they are decrypted). During this lockdown, the
> > ransomware will issue an alert, often in the form of a pop up, that
> > forces you to pay a fee to remove the lockdown." [Perhaps the
> > second
> > "ransomeware" is simply a typo for "software".]
> >
> > Not in OED3.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >

> ------------------------------------------------------------
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