We have recently observed the Virobot ransomware (detected by Trend Micro as RANSOM_VIBOROT.THIAHAH) which has botnet capabilities, affecting users in the United States.
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While ransomware has noticeably plateaued in today’s threat landscape, it’s still a cybercriminal staple. In fact, it saw a slight increase in activity in the first half of 2018, keeping pace by being fine-tuned to evade security solutions, or in the case of PyLocky (detected by Trend Micro as RANSOM_PYLOCKY.A), imitate established ransomware families and ride on their notoriety.
In late July and throughout August, we observed waves of spam email delivering the PyLocky ransomware. Although it tries to pass off as Locky in its ransom note, PyLocky is unrelated to Locky. PyLocky is written in Python, a popular scripting language; and packaged with PyInstaller, a tool used to package Python-based programs as standalone executables.
Read More We have been observing a malvertising campaign via Rig exploit kit delivering a cryptocurrency-mining malware and the GandCrab ransomware since July 25. On August 1, we found Rig’s traffic stream dropping a then-unknown ransomware. Delving into this seemingly new ransomware, we checked its ransom payment page in the Tor network and saw it was called Princess Evolution (detected by Trend Micro as RANSOM_PRINCESSLOCKER.B), and was actually a new version of the Princess Locker ransomware that emerged in 2016. Based on its recent advertisement in underground forums, it appears that its operators are peddling Princess Evolution as a ransomware as a service (RaaS) and are looking for affiliates.
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We recently discovered a new ransomware (Detected as RANSOM_BLACKHEART.THDBCAH), which drops and executes the legitimate tool known as AnyDesk alongside its malicious payload.
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In 2017, we saw digital extortion increasingly become cybercriminals’ first and foremost money-making modus operandi. It’s mostly due to ransomware — cybercriminals’ currently most popular weapon of choice, helping them in extorting cash from users all over the world and in hitting big businesses and organizations.
By infecting business-critical systems through their shotgun-style ransomware attacks and thus crippling enterprise day-to-day operations, cybercriminals managed to force big companies to bend to their will. Digital extortion has become the most successful moneymaking venture for cybercriminals, and the most effective in terms of the scale of their victims. Big or small, everyone gets hit, and everyone has to pay.
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