Comrade Circle Ransomware

The Comrade Circle Ransomware is a Trojan with file-encoding features that block your content to force you into paying a fee for the restoration process (also known as decryption). Paying for your data's recovery may provide no real solution, and malware experts advise using preemptive data and system protection, when applicable. Current anti-malware security should detect and remove the Comrade Circle Ransomware before it can finish encrypting any content.

Completing the Circle of Misdeed by Including Its Victims

Con artists using threat-based encryption attacks often try to profit from one of two business strategies: taking ransoms from any victimized individuals or taking money from other con artists with less programming knowledge for the privilege of being allowed to use the file encryption program. The Comrade Circle Ransomware's authors have taken the unusual step of trying to merge the two models together, potentially causing a victim to become an affiliate and, in turn, a fellow distributor of file encrypting Trojans.

Malware analysts estimate that the Comrade Circle Ransomware's installers are spam-distributed, comprising of such exploits as fake LinkedIn notifications, disguised attachments and similar e-mail content. When it gains system access, the Comrade Circle Ransomware triggers a fake 'Windows update' screen to hide that the Trojan is encrypting your data. Once the screen completes, your files will be renamed and encoded with an AES algorithm. Unlike most Trojans with the same designs, malware experts saw the Comrade Circle Ransomware overwriting the original names in full and replacing them with base64 strings in addition to adding custom extensions.

The Comrade Circle Ransomware's most significant feature is its ransom message, which asks for money in exchange for restoring your content. Some paragraphs in these instructions provide additional information on the Comrade Circle's supposedly charitable motives, as well as encouraging victims who are too poor to pay a ransom to help distribute the Trojan out of a promise of future riches. Malware experts can't corroborate the Trojan's claims of providing revenue to these opt-in affiliate victims, which most likely is a tactic meant to increase the scope of the campaign without any extra effort on the part of the original authors.

Breaking the Cycle of Trojan Attacks

Although the Comrade Circle Ransomware's code is most likely derivative from past threats, particularly the Fantom Ransomware, its social engineering strategy is a creative one that could pay off by giving the threat unpredictable new ways of installing itself. For those interested in recovering content that has been enciphered by the Comrade Circle Ransomware, malware researchers recommend using methods not associated with paying con artists for potentially fictitious or malfunctioning decryptors, which always is less dependable than restoring from backups.

You can see successful Comrade Circle Ransomware infections by identifying their fake update screens, their 'RESTORE-FILES!.txt' ransom messages, and the renamed files (which use a unique '.comrade' extension). Some image files also are being associated with this threat's campaign, possibly as components of a desktop wallpaper-hijacking routine. Since all of these symptoms occur after the encryption process already is underway, you may, instead, wish to protect your PC with anti-malware products able to stop the Comrade Circle Ransomware before it can damage your files, potentially permanently.

As usual, the promise of riches by Trojans like the Comrade Circle Ransomware is more of an optimistic prophecy for its authors than a sign of help for any of its victims. Whether or not you have any way of restoring your data without paying its extortion fee, abetting a threat campaign casually, is an act unlikely of reaping any reward.

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