‘Cyber Command of California’ Ransomware

Posted: October 16, 2013

Threat Metric

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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:	4

First Seen:	October 16, 2013
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware is a fraudulent Police Trojan known for displaying inaccurate legal alerts, blocking desktops and demanding fake legal fees as a means of providing revenue for malware authors. Although the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware doesn't have any legal means to support its claim of penalizing you for viewing child pornography or indulging in other Internet-based crimes, the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware does prevent you from accessing your PC and is a non-negligible security threat. SpywareRemove.com malware experts suggest removing the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware without paying the associated ransom – since most anti-malware products should be capable of deleting the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware regardless of the payment status of its fraudulent fee.

Why the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware Wants Your Money

The 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware is one of several identified members of an emerging branch of the Urausy family of fake Police Ransomware Trojans, currently labeled the 'Cyber Command of [State Name]' Ransomware. Other members of this branch of the family, such as the 'Cyber Command of South Texas' Ransomware, the 'Cyber Command of New York' Ransomware and the 'USA Cyber Crime Investigations' Ransomware, also specialize in delivering fraudulent alerts that are tailored to individual states of the US. However, no matter whether you're in California or a different state, the rest of the attack always is the same. Characteristics that malware experts consider noteworthy include:

The 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware will block your access to your desktop by launching a pop-up window that can't be closed/minimized.
The 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware's pop-up displays a fake government warning message that claims to have associated your PC with several illegal online activities – although the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware can't detect these crimes, in reality.
However, the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware does offer you a way out of its lockdown: by paying hundreds of dollars in ransom fees. SpywareRemove.com malware researchers particularly urge you not to pay this fee, which the US government has not authorized.

Following the trail of this attack to its conclusion, any money paid to the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware is transferred to criminals, rather than to the Californian state government.

Taking Command of Your Desktop Back from a Cyber Extortionist

Despite the timer ticking down till the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware claims to enact new penalties against your person, malware researchers haven't found any good reasons for paying the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware's ransom request. Instead, you can try to disable the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware by booting your computer from a backup OS and then deleting the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware with the anti-malware software of your preference.

The 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware and other Urausy variants often enjoy the assistance of exploit kits, which use software vulnerabilities (both outdated and zero-day ones) to install threats on your computer. Browser-based anti-malware protection and safe browsing habits both are crucial to blocking these attacks, which rarely show any symptoms that would let you know how to respond before the 'Cyber Command of California' Ransomware's pop-up starts appearing on your screen.

Technical Details

Additional Information

The following messages's were detected:

#	Message
1	USA Cyber Crime Investigations Cyber Command of California ATTENTION! Your computer has been blocked up for safety reasons listed below. You are accused of viewing/storage and/or dissemination of banned pornography (child pornography/zoophilia/rape etc). You have violated World Declaration on non-proliferation of child pornography. You are accused of committing the crime envisaged by Article 161 of United States of America criminal law. (...) The penalty set must be paid in course of 48 hours as of the breach. On expiration of the term, 48 hours that follow will be used for automatic collection of data on yourself and your misconduct, and criminal case wilt be opened against you. Amount of firm is 300$. You can settle the fine with MoneyPak or MoneyGram xpress Packet vouchers. (...)

Message

USA Cyber Crime Investigations
Cyber Command of California
ATTENTION!
Your computer has been blocked up for safety reasons listed below.
You are accused of viewing/storage and/or dissemination of banned pornography (child pornography/zoophilia/rape etc). You have violated World Declaration on non-proliferation of child pornography.
You are accused of committing the crime envisaged by Article 161 of United States of America criminal law.
(...)
The penalty set must be paid in course of 48 hours as of the breach. On expiration of the term, 48 hours that follow will be used for automatic collection of data on yourself and your misconduct, and criminal case wilt be opened against you. Amount of firm is 300$. You can settle the fine with MoneyPak or MoneyGram xpress Packet vouchers.
(...)