London, Feb 2: Police in Germany are warning people about a computer virus that accuses victims of viewing “juvenile pornography”, BBC reported.

The “ransomware” virus also displays an image that claims it can reveal images of child sexual abuse have been viewed on a computer. The virus locks a computer and only returns control to its owner on payment of a 100 euro fine. It purports to be collecting cash on behalf of German copyright authorities and the country’s national computer security agency.

Police said the virus amounted to “digital extortion” and victims should not pay up. The warning was issued by Germany’s Federal Criminal police office (Bundeskriminalamt or BKA).

The virus found by the BKA uses a pop–up window that says the machine has been locked down due to “unauthorised network activity”.

The window is crafted to look like it has been put together by Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BKI) and its society for prosecution of copyright infringement (GVU).

Text in the window claims that images of child sexual abuse as well as pirated content have been found on the machine, BBC said. Also displayed is a picture of a child which the virus claims reveals illegal images have been viewed on the computer.

Rik Ferguson, director of security research at Trend Micro, told BBC it was the first time he had heard of a virus displaying images that users were accused of harbouring.

The BKA said users should not pay the fine “under any circumstances” and added that neither the BKI or GVU collected cash in this way from those suspected of viewing illegal images or pirating content.

Instead, users should use anti–virus and other security software to clean up their PC and deal with the virus.

Ransomware, which tries to make victims pay an on–the–spot fine, is becoming more prevalent but most strains simply accuse people of pirating movies or music. Others scramble data that is only unscrambled when a fee is paid. Security firm Symantec said it was seeing more and more strains of ransomware and said it could be “highly profitable” for its creators. It estimated that ransomware makers were already making about $5 million a year from such malicious code. (IANS)