Birbware Ransomware

The Birbware Ransomware is a file-locker Trojan that encrypts your files for stopping them from opening. The Birbware Ransomware also displays pop-up warnings recommending that the victim contact the threat actor over Discord for a decryption solution. Reliable recovery options for any blocked files are limited to restoring from your latest, unencrypted backup, although any PCs protected by appropriate anti-malware products should be able to delete or quarantine the Birbware Ransomware before it starts harming any media.

The Birds are Attacking Your File

A threat actor is testing his detection rates against well-known AV brands with uploads of the Birbware Ransomware, a basic, file-locking Trojan that belongs to no known family. Although current, in-development versions contain no ransoming demands, the negotiations may take place over the Discord application, and the Trojan includes instructions and a built-in decryptor feature in a pop-up-based interface. However, the poor quality of coding in its unlocking feature may keep the Birbware Ransomware from restoring data, even if you submit to any ransoming demands.

The Birbware Ransomware is a Windows program whose only filenames, for now, consist of testing placeholders like 'TOTALLYLEGIT' or 'ransom.' It runs in most versions of Windows and has no packing or other, significant stealth-related features. The file-locker Trojan's media-targeting behavior searches for documents, pictures, and similar content, reads each file, deletes the original, and saves an encrypted copy of it. The decryption feature is similarly 'script kiddy' quality, and omits any form of verification for the code, which could cause additional data corruption in cases of the wrong one's use.

Besides its programming issues, the Birbware Ransomware uses an equally-primitive series of pop-ups for telling the user how to contact its threat actor for the decryptor. The meme-heavy content includes a Discord address, a decryption password field, and a background image displaying a crow attack. Currently, malware experts find no traces of any ransoming transaction channels, but the Birbware Ransomware's being in development makes it likely that such features may make it in later.

Putting Down an Avian Data Menace

The Birbware Ransomware is, like the Jigsaw Ransomware family, a meme-oriented and whimsical format for a file-locker Trojan. The use of media references doesn't make its encryption any more or less harmful to your files, however, and as malware experts find, can distract the victims from the possibility of the Birbware Ransomware's damaging content during the supposed unlocking routine unintentionally. Paying ransoms for decryption software, even when the form it takes seems harmless or trustworthy, is always inferior in reliability, compared to recovering from a backup.

No available samples of the Birbware Ransomware are likely for immediate, public distribution, and its infection vectors are entirely theoretical. File-locker Trojan campaigns can abuse spam e-mails, attached Word documents with malicious macros especially, along with browser-running exploit kits or freeware downloads, such as torrenting networks. Anti-malware products can provide appropriate protection by deleting the Birbware Ransomware or uninstalling the Trojan, when it's necessary, although unlocking files will require other solutions.

The Birbware Ransomware may seem like a joke to the person who programmed it, but the reality of its payload can turn into long-term damage to the contents of anyone's hard drive. Without a backup and attendant security precautions, your files could be the next to submit to attacks from a three-hundred-kilobyte 'birb.'