There is 0 % doubt that bitcoin and the community is being attacked by criminals without morals Internet access opened up a world of wisdom and all the distractions we can image. But the door is also open for cyber criminals with little to no scruples and a big appetite for money. I bet the security industry is blowing things up to make money out of it. But the facts show, without a doubt, that ransomware is the biggest cyber threat out there, for both companies and home users.
Just look at this chart which shows how many ransomware families have been identified in the past years. You should also know that ransomware families are only a starting point for tens or hundreds of variants! For example, CryptoWall, discovered inreached its fourth version in November And I plan to take you through all the protection steps you can easily put in place on your computer today, after work.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software malware which encrypts all the data on a PC or mobile device, locking the owner out. Once the infection takes place, the victim receives a message that provides instructions on how to pay the ransom usually in Bitcoins. The extortion process usually involved a time-limit for the payment.
Encrypting ransomwarewhich incorporates advanced encryption algorithms. Locker ransomwarewhich l ocks the victim out of the operating system, making it impossible to access the desktop and any apps or files.
The files are not encrypted in this case, but the attackers still ask for a ransom to unlock the infected computer. Examples include the police-themed ransomware or Winlocker. Examples include Satana and Petya ransomware. The cyber security community agrees that this is the most prominent and worrisome cyber threat of the moment.
The inventory of things that ransomware can do keeps growing every day, with each new security alert broadcasted by our team or other malware researchers. As ransomware families and variants multiply, you need to understand that you need at least baseline protection and data backup solutions to avoid data loss and other troubles.
Encrypting ransomware is a complex and advanced cyber threat which uses all the tricks available because it makes cyber criminals a huge amount of money. As cyber criminals moved from cyber vandalism to cyber crime as a business, ransomware emerged as the go-to malware to feed the money-making machine. The advent of Bitcoin and evolution of encryption algorithms favored made the context ripe for ransomware development too.
No one can map all the existing ransomware out there because most ransomware attacks go unreported. Evolution of there is 0 % doubt that bitcoin and the community is being attacked by criminals without morals by Symantec. Cyber criminals are not just malicious hackers who want public recognition and are driven by their quest for cyber mischief. That leaves us with to dig out the reasons why online criminals choose to target various types of Internet users.
This may help you better understand why things happen as they do right now. This prompted the FBI and many other institutions and security vendors in the industry to urge users, companies and other decision-makers to prepare against this threat and set up strong cyber protection layers.
Attacks on critical infrastructure electricity, water, etc. Ransomware and any other advanced piece of financial or data stealing malware spreads by any available means. Cyber criminals simply look for the easiest way to infect a system or network and use that backdoor to spread the malicious content. These attacks get more refined by the day, as cyber criminals learn from their mistakes and tweak their malicious code to be stronger, more intrusive and better suited to avoid cyber security solutions.
Which gets us to the next important answer in our common quest to understand ransomware attacks…. Though the infection phase is slightly different for each ransomware version, the key stages are the following:.
Initially, the victim receives an email which includes a malicious link or an malware-laden attachment. If the victim clicks on the link or downloads and opens the attachment, a downloader payload will be placed on the affected PC. The ransomware starts to encrypt the entire hard disk content, personal files and sensitive information.
It can also encrypt data on other computers connected in the local network. Everything happens in just a few seconds, so victims are completely dumbstruck as they stare at the ransom note in disbelief. This collection of technical methods ensures that crypto-ransomware infections can stay below the radar there is 0 % doubt that bitcoin and the community is being attacked by criminals without morals.
The rationale is simple: It features built-in traffic anonymizers, like TOR and Bitcointo avoid tracking by law enforcement agencies and to receive ransom payments. It employs domain shadowing to conceal exploits and hide the communication between the downloader payload and the servers controlled by cyber criminals where the ransomware is stored. It features Fast Flux, another technique used to keep the source of the infection anonymous. It deploys encrypted payloads which can make it more difficult for antivirus to see that they include malware, so the infection has more time to unfold.
It has the ability to remain dormant — the ransomware can remain inactive on the system until the computer it at its most vulnerable moment and take advantage of that to strike fast and effectively.
So while newcomers may want to get a share of the cash, there are some ransomware families that have established their domination. Inthe major ransomware strand known as Reveton started to spread. It was based on the Citadel trojan, which was, in turn, part of the Zeus family. This was a type of locker ransomware, not an encrypting one.
Once the warning appears, the victim is informed that the computer has been used for illegal activities, such as torrent downloads or for watching porn. The graphic display enforced the idea that everything is real. Elements like the computer IP address, logo from the law enforcement organization in that specific country or the localized content, all of these created the general illusion that everything is actually happening. In JuneDeputy Attorney General James Cole, from the US Department of Justice, declared that a large joint operation between law agencies and security companies employed traditional law enforcement techniques and cutting edge technical measures necessary to combat highly sophisticated cyber schemes targeting our citizens and businesses.
He was talking about Operation Tovarone of the biggest take-downs in the history of cyber security. Operation Tovar aimed to take down the Gameover ZeuS botnet, which authorities also suspected of spreading financial malware and CryptoLocker ransomware. The real bummer is that all of your important files — pictures, documents, movies, MP3s — will remain scrambled with virtually unbreakable encryption. CryptoLocker infections peaked in Octoberwhen it was infecting aroundcomputers a month!
CryptoWall is such a variant and it has already reached its third version, CryptoWall 4. This number alone shows how fast this malware is being improved and used in online attacks! Ineven the FBI agreed that ransomware is here to stay. Until then, this prediction became reality and now we understand the severity and impact of the crypto-ransomware phenomenon. In the similar manner to CryptoLocker, CryptoWall spreads through various infection vectors since, including browser exploit kits, drive-by downloads and malicious email attachments.
CTB Locker is one of the latest ransomware variants of CryptoLocker, but at there is 0 % doubt that bitcoin and the community is being attacked by criminals without morals totally different level of sophistication. If more people can understand what happened to their data, the bigger the payday. CTB-Locker was one of the first ransomware strains to be sold as a service in the underground forums. Since then, this has become almost the norm. This file-encrypting ransomware emerged in early and its makers often tried to refer to it as CryptoLocker, in order to piggyback on its awareness.
Since then, TorrentLocker relied almost entirely on spam emails for distribution. In order to increase effectiveness, both the emails and the ransom note were targeted geographically. Attackers noticed that attention to detail meant that they could trick more users into opening emails and clicking on malicious links, to they took it a step further. They used good grammar in their texts, which made their traps seem authentic to the unsuspecting victims. Until that point, a decryption tool created by a malware researcher had worked.
But soon TorrentLocker released a new variant which featured stronger encryption and narrowed the chances for breaking it to zero. Its abilities to harvest email addresses from the infected PC are there is 0 % doubt that bitcoin and the community is being attacked by criminals without morals noteworthy.
Naturally, these emails were used in subsequent spam campaigns to further distribute the ransomware. When it first emerged, TeslaCrypt focused on a specific audience: Not all of them, but actually a segment that player a series of specific games, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Minecraft and World of Tanks.
By exploiting vulnerabilities mainly in Adobe Flash a serial culprit for ransomware infectionsTeslaCrypt moves on to bigger targets, such as European companies. But, as you can guess, TeslaCrypt makers corrected the flaws and released new versions that featured stronger encryption and enhanced data leakage capabilities. Researchers managed to get the universal master decryption key from them and built a decryptor that you can use if you happen to be a victim of TeslaCrypt ransomware.
No one knows why the guys behind TeslaCrypt quit, but we can only hope to see more of that in the cyber crime scene. Locky has a rampant distribution across the world. Here is the geographical distribution of this ransomware family in April This is a promise that Union Built PC wants you to make to yourself; you will take the threat of ransomware seriously and do something about it before it hits your data. How we wish we could say that ransomware is not a life and death kind of situation!
But if you work in a hospital and you trigger a crypto-ransomware infection, it could actually endanger lives. Having a plan to deal with threats to your security will help you see the bigger picture without overlooking important details. Storing irreplaceable data like academic papers, work documents and cherished photos only your PC makes you vulnerable.
If something happens to that device ransomware, physical damage, theft, etc. Which brings us to the next step. Keep at least 2 backups of your data. Keep a copy of your data on an external hard drive and one in the cloud. And check that your backups are intact and can be restored if you need to. There are types of ransomware that can encrypt everything on your drive, including the data in your cloud accounts, if the cloud apps are running on your PC. That could destroy a data backup, which is why you have to be extra-careful and keep multiple backups.
The latest security updates are especially important. Instead, use a guest account with limited privileges. These are bits of software that cyber criminals often use to spread malware and infect computers.
During this period the private party has the responsibility to raise the finance for the. Since trading cryptocurrency is lucrative, these scammers are trying to steal money offering huge profit returns.
Crypto exchanges deluged with new applications ( ro) - InstaForex. GunBot. The CryptoTrader trading bot has closed an ETH position.