Dec. 8th, 2010. I wouldn't normally do this because of the prevalence of similar hoax's. However, this originates from cases i am seeing at my office. I am not spreading 3rd party information. I have noticed a sudden rush of computers that won't boot. They turn on and then hang at a blank screen or a screen with a flashing cursor. At the same time the hard drive will be working away and the hard drive light will be flashing so fast it will look like its on solid. The virus is contracted by simply visiting a malicious web site. Anti-Virus software seems to be ineffective at protecting the computer. These symptoms seem to imply that the virus is doing something with lots of data while your screen sits idly blank. Here's the scary part. I have been readying a lot of industry articles on the resurgence of ransom-ware. This is a virus that encrypts your data and then demands a ransom for its safe return. This type of virus would produce the symptoms outlined above. It's too early to make a definitive link, but based on the number of cases i'm seeing, this could cause lots of problems. If you see this type of behavior, shut down your computer immediately to stop the encryption process and have the machine cleaned by a competent tech.