Journalists of the Swedish public TV company SVT took the trail of hackers, with the help of the virus, blocked the computers of users in several countries of the world, and then demanded a ransom for the removal of the lock. About this writes DW. com.

Anonymous group of hackers, whose activities are supposedly coordinated from Russian St. Petersburg, sent over 1.6 million emails by e-mail, issued in the form of messages from the Swedish telecommunications company Telia and the postal operator PostNord.

The opening of such a letter and the transition to the link attached to it leads to the blocking of the user's computer, for the removal of which extortionists demand redemption.

SVT journalists together with the authors of the investigation program Uppdrag granskning as a result of the leak got access to the database of cybercriminals and went to the trail of Internet extortionists.

According to reporters, computers in 31 countries were infected, including Sweden, Australia, Poland, Spain, Italy, Turkey and India.

The size of the repurchase in most cases varies from 4 to 6 thousand Swedish kronor (about 410-620 euros), to list it is offered in bitcoins.

Since the amount is relatively small, "many quickly pay it," explained one of the victims interviewed by journalists living in Stockholm.

To conclude that the crimes are the hackers associated with Russia, the authors of the investigation came, analyzing the correspondence received by the leakage of extortionists, which is "conducted in Russian".

It deals with bank accounts, infected computers and the amount of funds that they managed to "earn" as a result of cyber attacks.

In addition, SVT claims that the "encryption program used by criminals sends a special key to the server in Russia". The IP address, from which the activities of hackers are coordinated, is also "managed from the connection in the center of St. Petersburg," journalists explain..