Cuzimvirus Ransomware

Posted: October 31, 2016

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:	8/10
Infected PCs:	49

First Seen:	October 27, 2016
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Cuzimvirus Ransomware is a Trojan that blocks your access to the desktop and other parts of the Windows UI, including other programs and files. While doing so, the Cuzimvirus Ransomware displays instructions on contacting its administrators via e-mail, through which ransom negotiations proceed. Like all cases of threats disrupting your PC access, you should counteract this threat by using a secure boot sequence and deleting the Cuzimvirus Ransomware through a dedicated anti-malware service.

Seeing Red in More Ways than One

Even as file-encoding attacks have become more commonplace in the last two years, Trojans continue supplementing them with other attacks, many of which are just as impairing as losing access to your hard drive's contents. The Cuzimvirus Ransomware is a simple, self-contained showcase of such functions that malware experts often see coming alongside threatening file encryption. In the Cuzimvirus Ransomware's case, the screen-locking function supplants file-encoding as the primary feature of its payload.

After it initializes, the Cuzimvirus Ransomware generates an advanced HTML pop-up window with a simple, red background. Although this window may not take up the entire screen, the Cuzimvirus Ransomware prevents the victim from closing it by intercepting mouse clicks with a series of IF-ELSE statements. In response, it returns an 'INVAILD CODE!' error (seemingly a typo).

The actual pop-up message asks the victims to contact the Cuzimvirus Ransomware's e-mail address to send an ID code to help unlock their PCs but makes no mention of any ransom. This minor social engineering ploy is in use in some, recent threat campaigns where the threat actor doesn't intend to offer any forewarning of the fact that unlocking your PC isn't free.

Getting the Cuzimvirus out of Your System

Although its self-bestowed title of the Cuzimvirus may be intimidating, the Cuzimvirus Ransomware is not classifiable as being a proper virus adequately, under the terms of commonly-defined threats. Malware experts see no self-distributing features in the current release of the Cuzimvirus Ransomware. Even more importantly, they also see major vulnerabilities in its system lock-down attack.

Unlike almost all competing screen lockers and file encoder Trojans, the Cuzimvirus Ransomware doesn't use obfuscated code to protect its unlocking key sufficiently. The Cuzimvirus Ransomware also uses a hard-coded key, rather than a dynamically-generated one that would vary between multiple infections. Entering the string 'Unlock' in the first field, and '16wsmc51Ktxcvl3' in the second field, should unlock your desktop. If the Cuzimvirus Ransomware is updated to patch these oversights, malware experts recommend booting into Safe Mode as an alternate means of avoiding the pop-up to let your anti-malware tools delete the Cuzimvirus Ransomware.

The Cuzimvirus Ransomware is not a very advanced threat necessarily, but for PC users not informed on ways of fighting its attacks, it can be just as formidable as a much more well-designed Trojan than itself.

Trojan.Screenlocker Cuzimvirus

Cuzimvirus Ransomware

Threat Metric

Seeing Red in More Ways than One

Getting the Cuzimvirus out of Your System

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