Security Awareness Training Blog

Ransomware Blog

Keeping you updated on the latest ransomware attack vectors, strains, decryptors, families and trends to help you avoid becoming infected.

Symantec: Crypto Ransomware Phishing Up 700 Percent in 2014

Very interesting data from Symantec. This is fresh from the press and shows Phishing, Spam and Malware trends. There is a PDF with a whole bunch more data, but these are the most relevant ...
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New Ransomware Discovered Called CryptoGraphic Locker

Panda researcher BartBlaze discovered a new strain of ransomware called CryptoGraphic Locker. Bleepingcomputer wrote: "Just like other encrypting ransomware, this infection will scan your ...
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Meet CryptoWall, The New Ransomware Leader (with heatmap)

Malware comes in waves. CryptoLocker was the first major, vicious ransomware, and set off a bunch of copycats. Recently 16 competing ransomware gangs were identified. After CryptoLocker ...
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Bitcoin Phishing Click Rate Higher Than Regular Scams

The Proofpoint Threatinsight blog reported on something curious. They called their posting "Curiosity Clicks: Using Bitcoin’s hype for phishing fun" and came up with some interesting ...
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900,000 Android Phones Hit by Ransomware in 30 days

August 22, 2014 - Nicole Perlroth at the New York Times wrote: "You are guilty of child porn, child abuse, zoophilia or sending out bulk spam. You are a criminal. The Federal Bureau of ...
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Cryptolocker Being Spread On YouTube Ads

VirusBulletin reported that cyber criminals now spread around Cryptolocker / CryptoWall via YouTube. The cyber criminals purchase advertising space and use exploit kits to infect ...
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Reveton Ransomware Adds Powerful Password Stealer

The Avast Blog reports a new "password stealer" feature in the Reveton ransomware. Reveton is the type of "police" lock/screen ransomware which falsely alerts users they've broken some ...
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New CryptoLocker copycat: TorrentLocker

iSIGHT partners discovered a new ransomware strain, which uses components of CryptoLocker and CryptoWall but underneath the surface, the code is completely different from these two ...
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Ransomware: The next 12 months

Since September 2013, ransomware has become vicious and has inspired several copycats. At the time of this writing, summer 2014, the very first strains of second-generation ransomware ...
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Security Companies Help Users Recover Files Locked by CryptoLocker

Researchers at FireEye and Fox-IT have managed to obtain the private encryption keys that the malware uses to lock files.
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Cryptolocker Ransomware Variant Hits Synology Users: Synolocker

When your products get targeted with custom made ransomware, you know you've got it made. We're talking about NAS (network-attached storage) built by Synology in Taiwan. the malware has ...
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The Internet of Things, Risks Of Hooking Up Appliances

This is a (very) short sci-fi story that looks at the cyber security risks of hooking up household appliances to the Internet. Warning - this is one grumpy man.
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Security Awareness Training blocked Ransomware Infection

ComputerWorld in Australia reported on a very nice success where security awareness training prevented a major ransomware infection. They started out with: "People like to ask the ...
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Heads-Up: Second Generation Ransomware In The Wild

Last week, Fedor Sinitisyn, blogger and security researcher for Kaspersky posted something worrisome. He reported that the Angler Exploit Kit was delivering a new second-generation type ...
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Cryptolocker Is Not Dead

Tyler Moffitt, Threat Team Member at Webroot wrote:
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ALERT: Ransomware Infection = Official Data Breach

This is one of the rare Cyberheist NewsFlash issues that we send when we run into something important enough to alert you about right away. Please forward to your friends and colleagues.
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Brokerage house Gets Hit With CryptoWall Ransomware

The brokerage house, Benjamin F. Edwards & Co., announced this week that they had suffered a data breach. May 24, 2014 they had their computer systems compromised by an unauthorized ...
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[InfoGraphic] Ransomware Threats Concern Survey

We surveyed over 300 system administrators regarding ransomware, here are the results:
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