Cryptobot Ransomware
Posted: May 26, 2015
Threat Metric
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 |
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Infected PCs: | 8 |
First Seen: | November 3, 2014 |
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OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
The Cryptobot Ransomware is a file encryption Trojan that may install itself through Trojan droppers embedded in the file attachments of fraudulent e-mail messages. Like CryptoWall or Critoni, the Cryptobot Ransomware encrypts files on your PC to make them unreadable and then provides instructions for how to pay its maintainers for access to a theoretical decryption service. There are no guarantees with this payment method, and you should seek alternative methods of protecting your files from the Cryptobot Ransomware while using anti-malware strategies as needed for removing the Cryptobot Ransomware from a machine.
The E-mail that Sends You a File Ransom
The Cryptobot Ransomware is a file encryption-based threat very similar to previous ones of the same classification, with its primary goal being to block your access to your personal information until you pay a ransom fee. The Cryptobot Ransomware's current campaign distributes its installers through e-mail messages with the formats of fake government notifications, such as warnings for violating the traffic code. PC users who open the attached files may find their systems infected by the Cryptobot Ransomware, which, afterward, launches automatically with Windows.
The Cryptobot Ransomware establishes contact with a C&C server for the purposes of internal campaign organization, and also for acquiring its HTML-based ransom message. The Cryptobot Ransomware then scans your PC for files of particular formats, such as JPG images or XLS Excel spreadsheets and then encrypts them. The Trojan renames the encrypted files with a new '.encrypted' extension, which lets victims search for and identify the affected files immediately. However, they'll be unable to open or use the affected files without the help of a decryption process.
Crawling out of the the Cryptobot Campaign
The Cryptobot Ransomware redirects its victims to a specialized website supposedly for processing payments for its file-decrypting service, at a cost of roughly 500 USD. At the same time, the Cryptobot Ransomware also blocks any attempt to restore the encrypted files from a local backup (by deleting your Windows Shadow Volume Copies). As a result, using the default, Windows system restore feature is unable to roll back the effects of the Cryptobot Ransomware's attack. However, malware experts find that remote file backups, such as those stored on separate devices or in a cloud storage server, should be entirely unaffected. This limitation, common to most file encrypting Trojans, allows victims of a Cryptobot Ransomware attack a free avenue for restoring any encrypted or otherwise lost data.
Anti-malware tools should be used for identifying the Cryptobot Ransomware's e-mail-based installers or for removing the Cryptobot Ransomware from an already infected computer. For their part, malware experts particularly recommend being cautious about 'government notifications' that may arrive in unusual ways. This warning is especially pertinent when the messages fail to match up with your personal history or request that you take actions that could endanger your PC.
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