Cradle Ransomware

Posted: April 4, 2017

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	10/10
Infected PCs:	19

First Seen:	April 4, 2017
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Cradle Ransomware is a file-encrypting Trojan that locks your files so that it can extort ransoms through its Web payment system. The results of paying these ransoms may be unpredictable, and malware experts recommend alternatives, such as free decryptors or backup restoration, if you can use them. Use anti-malware products for removing the Cradle Ransomware either before its installation, preferably, or after it infects your computer.

Taking Your Files from the Cradle to the Grave

The people who want to make money by attacking the data of others can deploy their threats using one of two, dominant strategies: targeting businesses for high ransoms, or infecting PCs at random to collect larger amounts of smaller payments. As part of the latter group, the Cradle Ransomware could be a novice project, but its authors are putting in the work of including a separate ransom-processing domain that implies a degree of experience with this 'black hat' industry. Malware experts have yet to come to any conclusions about how the Cradle Ransomware is installing itself or which systems are at most risk of being infected.

The Cradle Ransomware uses non-consensual encryption to lock your files with what malware experts are estimating to be an AES-based cipher. This media, such as documents, compressed archives, or pictures, also incurs the '.cradle' extensions that the Cradle Ransomware adds after any existing one. The extension is unique to this campaign, and malware experts find no other evidence connecting the Cradle Ransomware to other families of threatening software, at this date.

Once the Cradle Ransomware locks your data, it launches an HTML pop-up. The pop-up window claims that the Cradle Ransomware is using a 'military-grade' encryption (a recurring bluff by file-encrypting Trojans), includes a payment timer, and asks you to pay 0.25 Bitcoins, or 285 USD, to receive a working download link to the Trojan's decryption application. Since private businesses may be forced into paying more for their servers' contents, this ransom amount may indicate that the Cradle Ransomware is meant to infect casual, recreational PC users.

Stopping the Growth of a Newborn Ransoming Campaign

As a guideline, victims shouldn't pay the ransom without attempting all alternatives beforehand. Con artists may or may not deliver a decryptor, and free decryption isn't always an impossibility. However, no data recovery option relying on decrypting your data ever can be superior to being able to restore your content from a backup, such as a cloud server with password protection, or an unconnected USB device. Some Trojans of the Cradle Ransomware's classification also may fail to delete the Windows default backups, which malware analysts have yet to rule out for this threat.

Limited sample size prevents malware researchers from drawing any firm conclusions about how the Cradle Ransomware's authors mean to distribute the Trojan's installer. While the RIG Exploit Kit is one popular delivery mechanism for file-encrypting threats, spam e-mails are prominent similarly. Some threat actors also use bundles that disguise the installers within free downloads. In any of these examples, your anti-malware products should remove the Cradle Ransomware and avoid any possibility of data encryption.

Threat actors have good reasons to put work into the website-side of their digital extortion campaigns, including displaying believable falsehoods to any victims. Read ransoming notes from Trojans like the Cradle Ransomware with a large grain of salt and do what you can to protect your PC from attacks that may have no better after-the-fact solution than paying and praying.

Technical Details

File System Modifications

Tutorials: If you wish to learn how to remove malware components manually, you can read the tutorials on how to find malware, kill unwanted processes, remove malicious DLLs and delete other harmful files. Always be sure to back up your PC before making any changes.

The following files were created in the system:

file.exe

File name: file.exe
Size: 91.64 KB (91648 bytes)
MD5: 53f6f9a0d0867c10841b815a1eea1468
Detection count: 87
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: May 3, 2017