'5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware

The '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware is a variant of the GusLocker Ransomware, a file-locker Trojan that can block your media with encryption so that the files can't open. The '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware also creates ransoming messages for the criminal's unlocker via Web pages and may provoke symptoms such as negative changes to your wallpaper or backups. The use of proper backup strategies will keep your files safe from these attacks, and most anti-malware applications should remove the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware from your computer.

The 20K Trojan Starts Mutating

The GusLocker Ransomware, a mostly-traditional, file-locker Trojan with an exorbitant ransom, is starting to see variants out in the wild. Malware researchers haven't confirmed the original Trojan's being part of a Ransomware-as-a-Service business or another method of distribution, such as freely-leaked source code, and the original threat actors may or may not have any involvement. The '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware is one of the many cases of a 'new' Trojan whose changes are no more than cosmetic.

The '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware, like the GusLocker Ransomware or unrelated threats such as the vast Hidden Tear family, is a Windows environment-based program that uses a simple encryption algorithm for locking different formats of media on the computers that it infects. After locking the user's important documents, images, archives, and other work, it adds an extension to their names. The addition includes the criminal's e-mail address (which is variable and bracket-enclosed), a set of semi-random numbers, and an extension (such as '.bip') without removing the original filename's text.

Malware researchers barely find any changes at all in the ransoming message that the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware provides, which is a local Web page. The only reference to the enormous ransom (an equivalent of twenty thousand USD in Bitcoins) is in the e-mail address, itself. If it's at all possible, the victim should not pay, since the criminals can accept the cryptocurrency and not provide the supposed service.

Keeping Your Costs Low against Expensive Threats

The costliness of the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware's ransoming expectations, along with the unknown factors in its cryptography feature, make it nigh-mandatory for the users to protect their files preemptively. Backing up work to a cloud service or a removable device will provide your digital media with adequate defenses against file-locker Trojans of all families. Users with samples available should consider offering them to interested cyber-security researchers for furthering the analysis of the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware's file-locking features, which may be decryptable.

Threat actors may circulate the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware by attaching its installer to a corrupted, disguised e-mail file or link, with the contents, frequently, custom to the victim. Non-secure servers with careless management of passwords, RDP settings or firewalls are, also, at risk for file-locker Trojan infections. Malware experts advise updating your security software for detecting new threats especially and removing the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware, whose family has a history of evading heuristic detection rules.

Whether the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware's author still expects to make tens of thousands of dollars off of the '5btc@protonmail.com' Ransomware or not, the Trojan is disruptive to your PC's work and recreational files credibly. Taking their safety as a given is an easy slide into being taken advantage of by criminals who would prefer it if no one used backups.