Visual Micro VS download contains RANSOMWARE

Using Arduino IDE 1.x
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I found a glowing recommendation for a Visual Studio Arduino Plugin (Arduino Playground - VisualStudio) from Visual Micro, so I decided to give it a try. Everything looked up&up, the download came from msdn.microsoft (which I now know means nothing). I downloaded the plug and and installed, was even using it and impressed. Then the wheels feel off. An alert came up in my tray about saving a copy of my new file encryption certificate. I knew then and there I was hosed. The race started, trying to get off my latest work while the trojan horse encrypted my drives. Sure enough, ransomware.

Fortunately, I had recently cloned my drive, Clonezilla saved my chestnuts from what could have been a disaster to a recoverable, frustrating morning.

Moderators, you need to take this link down! Arduino Playground - VisualStudio

Back to cleaning the mess,

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An endorsement for good virus softwares?

Weedpharma

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The race started, trying to get off my latest work while the trojan horse encrypted my drives. Sure enough, ransomware.

If you get something like ransomware or malware that deletes data, PULL THE POWER FROM THE MACHINE.

Boot using another OS (like a Linux live cd) to retrieve what you can. Turning it off as soon as possible is paramount