Crying Ransomware

Posted: May 31, 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:	72

First Seen:	May 31, 2017
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The list of low-quality crypto-threats based on the HiddenTear project continues to increase, and the latest addition to it is the Crying Ransomware, a poorly crafted threat that aims to lock files and then demand a 0.05 Bitcoin ransom sum from each victim. As usual, the Crying Ransomware's attack will target a large list of file extensions, and victims of this crypto-threat are likely to end up losing access to their documents, images, archives, databases, and other commonly used files. Once the Crying Ransomware's encryption routine is finished successfully, the threat will display the ransom message in a new program window titled 'Crying.' However, due to a bug in the code, the window might not always stay open, and that's why the authors leave a second ransom message in the file 'READ_IT.txt.' This text file does not contain much information, and it just instructs users to continue to open the 'Crying' application until it works.

Once the executable file is launched successfully, users will be provided with the full contents of the ransom note. The attackers warn them that their data has been encrypted securely and any attempts to decrypt it for free are bound to fail. They also promise the victims that their data will be restored as soon as they send 0.05 BTC to the Bitcoin wallet seen in the ransom message. Thankfully, victims of the Crying Ransomware will not need to pay the small ransom sum to get their data back, because HiddenTear-based file-encryption Trojans use a flawed AES key generation algorithm, which has allowed malware experts to develop a free decryptor that works with all HiddenTear variants, including the Crying Ransomware.

'Your're Files have been encrypted.
Please read the program to learn how to decrypt your files.
if the program won't open so you can read it. You can start the program again and again until it opens the form with the information displayed.'

However, before attempting to recover any of their files, victims of the Crying Ransomware must not forget that their main priority should be to make sure that the threat will not be able to inflict any more damage to their files. This can be ensured by running a reputable anti-malware utility, which will eliminate the corrupted files, and prevent the Crying Ransomware from encrypting other data. When this step is completed successfully, it is time to download and use a free HiddenTear decryptor to extract the decryption key and proceed with the file decryption process.

Crying Ransomware

Threat Metric

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