Apollolocker Ransomware

Posted: September 7, 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:	52

First Seen:	September 7, 2017
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The ApolloLocker Ransomware is a Trojan that may collect information or lock the files on your PC by encrypting them. Other symptoms associated with this threat include messages asking you to pay money for recovering your encrypted data, although the con artists may break these agreements. Use either preventative security procedures or backups to preserve any vulnerable media and professional anti-malware programs for removing the ApolloLocker Ransomware after an infection.

Trojans Shining Down on Turkey's PC Workers

It's today's standard procedure for threatening software to specialize in what it does, but not all threat actors want their Trojans to do just one thing at a time. A few threats include additional attacks that they can accomplish simultaneously, which can serve the purpose of creating vulnerabilities for later exploitation or distracting the victim from the real motivation, such as the exfiltration of legally-protected data. The ApolloLocker Ransomware is just one such example, with its payload enabling both spyware-related features for passing over data, as well as ransom-based ones for locking the contents of your PC.

Based on the HTML instructions it relays to any victims, the ApolloLocker Ransomware campaign appears to be specializing in Turkish users, although most aspects of an infection could apply equally well to PCs elsewhere. The attacks malware experts emphasize as the greatest security issues with any the ApolloLocker Ransomware infection include:

The ApolloLocker Ransomware can encrypt the local media on a PC, including documents and pictures ordinarily, with a cipher to prevent them from opening. Every file also is appended with the '.locked' extension, which the ApolloLocker Ransomware also shares with several, unrelated Trojans.
Unlike most file-encoding threats, the ApolloLocker Ransomware also collects passwords and related confidential data by monitoring your keyboard or Web-browsing activities. So far, malware analysts only can confirm the compatibility of the ApolloLocker Ransomware's spyware features with Internet Explorer.
This Trojan also includes features meant to protect it from analysis by security researchers. As a result, the ApolloLocker Ransomware may self-terminate or display other behavior, if it runs within a VM (or Virtual Machine) environment.
The ApolloLocker Ransomware also drops links to Web pages meant to redirect the victim to a ransom-paying TOR site for decrypting their media, and all of its provided text is for Turkish readers. Unusually, the threat actors offer several weeks to pay, instead of the one to three days that malware experts see throughout most of the digital extortion industry.

Extinguishing a Sun Fueled by Ransoms

While the sun god-based name implies at least a superficial familiarity with the Greek mythology, the ApolloLocker Ransomware has yet to be verifiable for compromising PCs outside of Turkey's borders. However, attacks by this threat are capable of damaging data permanently through the encryption process and may not be recoverable directly. PC users who can't afford to lose specific files should copy that content to a detachable drive or a protected cloud server, and avoid limiting themselves to ransom-based recovery options that may not be reciprocal.

The ApolloLocker Ransomware shares its extension-based symptom with other, file-locking Trojans, including ones that lack its capacity for logging and uploading information. Victims of potential attacks by file-locking threats should avoid trying to identify them visually. Disable all Internet connectivity as soon as possible and allow your anti-malware program to uninstall the ApolloLocker Ransomware before it can collect or lock any additional data. Malware experts always discourage paying any ransoms since threat actors always can accept the payment without providing their half of the decryption solution.

Other threats before the ApolloLocker Ransomware show similar proclivities towards conducting 'hidden' attacks, like collecting passwords, alongside their more detectable ones. While a minority usually, the ApolloLocker Ransomware, and its kin, exemplify many of the problems with judging a security risk by what one sees.

Apollolocker Ransomware

Threat Metric

Trojans Shining Down on Turkey's PC Workers

Extinguishing a Sun Fueled by Ransoms

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