Yet Another Reason to Have Offsite Data Backup

A new variant of Gpcode virus is out and targeting all Windows systems. It is a dangerous file-encryptor. It encrypts a whole variety of user files, targeting files with extensions such as DOC, TXT, PDF, XLS, JPG, PNG, CPP, H etc using rsa encryption. Once file encrypted it displayed following message on screen demanding ransom:

Your files are encrypted with RSA-1024 algorithm.
To recovery your files you need to buy our decryptor.
To buy decrypting tool contact us at: ********@yahoo.com

RSA-1024 algorithm / encryption is pretty strong and any attempt to break it will result in nothing. According to this blog posting it will take 5 million modern computers to crack a key:

Along with antivirus companies around the world, we're faced with the task of cracking the RSA 1024-bit key. This is a huge cryptographic challenge. We estimate it would take around 15 million modern computers, running for about a year, to crack such a key.

This also makes hard drive data recovery difficult. Your best choice against such attack is backup data regularly and move to offsite. Now virus writer using rsa security to black mail you. Any OS (Windows is big target for this kind of attacks) can be open to such attack and only backups can protect you.