Cryptofag Ransomware

Posted: January 31, 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:	90

First Seen:	January 31, 2017
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Cryptofag Ransomware is a fairly new cyber-threat that has already found tens of victims by using various attack vectors such as brute forcing the RDP service on computers/servers running the Windows Server, or by tricking users into downloading a corrupted file attachment. Regardless of the method used to infect computers, the Cryptofag Ransomware's attacks always have the same outcome – they leave the end-user with a large number of inaccessible files whose contents were encrypted via a strong encryption. The peculiar thing about the Cryptofag Ransomware is that it seems to be able to work in offline mode since it creates a '-KEY2017.KEEPME' file that must be used during the decryption, but only after the ransom fee has been paid. In addition to this file, the ransomware also leaves behind a '-HACKED.OPENME' file that contains the ransom message. A peculiar thing about the Cryptofag Ransomware is that it does not modify the names of the files it encrypts.

The demands of the Cryptofag Ransomware's authors are unknown currently, but if they are inspired by some of the popular crypto-threats out there, it is likely that they will demand money from their victims. To keep their anonymity, the authors of the Cryptofag Ransomware will probably ask their victims to make all payments via Bitcoins, therefore allowing them to cash out the money without any chance of being traced. The amount of the ransom fee is unknown, but it is not uncommon for threats of this quality to ask for 0.3 – 1.5 Bitcoins in exchange for a decryptor that can help victims recover their locked files.

Although there's no information whether the free decryption of the Cryptofag Ransomware will become possible, we advise people whose files were locked by this threat not to believe the message that states that their files will be recovered when the ransom fee is paid. Instead of trusting anonymous cyber crooks, victims of the Cryptofag Ransomware should install and run a reputable anti-virus product immediately, which will make sure that all corrupted components are eliminated from the computer. However, this will not do anything for the encrypted files, and users will have to look for alternative file recovery options. The only guaranteed way to get the files back is to recover them from a safe backup, but if that's not an option, then some 3rd-party file restoration utilities might proof to be helpful.

Cryptofag Ransomware

Threat Metric

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