Cyron Ransomware

The Cyron Ransomware is a variant of FTSCoder, a group of Trojans using encryption and misinforming pop-ups to attack your PC. Along with encoding your files, the Cyron Ransomware also may claim to be a legal penalty for your Web-browsing history, although the Trojan has no affiliations with any nation's law enforcement. Malware analysts recommend that users have anti-malware programs capable of removing the Cyron Ransomware upon its detection and secure backups to undo any data loss it causes.

The Trojan Police are Coming with Spurious Accusations in Hand

Even though fake, police-themed alerts have been a favorite tactic of old Trojan campaigns, most Trojans of the current year prefer to take data hostage without putting much if any effort into misrepresenting the cause of the attack. For a rarity, however, malware experts confirmed recently samples of a Trojan fusing the two strategies: the Cyron Ransomware. Its choice of warning message uses the once-common threats of fictitious legal punishments to encourage paying while it also blocks local files to add even more incentive to the act.

The Cyron Ransomware derives most of its payload from the FTSCoder software, a Trojan family that also sees exploitation through threats like the WhyCry Ransomware and the BlackSheep Ransomware. In all cases, the Trojan's central feature is its encryption functionality, which encodes and locks content of formats ranging from GIF pictures and AVI videos to text documents like DOC. It also injects '.CYRON' extensions into the names of anything that it blocks.

The more uncommon feature from the Cyron Ransomware is the pop-up window it loads after finishing the above function to hold your media hostage. While other versions of FTSCoder also include pop-up displays, the Cyron Ransomware uses a customized image that claims that the system has a Web-browsing history associated with child pornography websites and that the file-locking attack is a legally-authorized punitive measure to resolve by paying a ransom. Although the Cyron Ransomware doesn't use logos for any law-enforcing institution, it does include India-localized references regarding ancillaries of the Supreme Court.

What to Do about Fraudulent Police without Warrants

The Cyron Ransomware's tactic includes elements of social engineering that malware researchers often see in use with similar campaigns. A live countdown, the fetching generic system information like the local IP address and clear lists of which files the Trojan is blocking all help encourage the victim to pay quickly, before realizing that the Cyron Ransomware isn't a legal program. Trojans using FTSCoder are frequently decryptable by free software, and malware experts recommend testing spares of any files with such utilities before risking any premium recovery options. Backups also offer even more dependable protection from the Cyron Ransomware's encryption damages.

The Cyron Ransomware campaign seems to be focusing on Indian PC users, but FTSCoder is, by no means, limited to systems in that country. Threat actors may install the Cyron Ransomware through e-mail attachment-based content that they conceal as news articles, invoices, or other data of interest to the victim. As of this article's writing, a majority of professional AV programs are detecting this threat and should experience no difficulties in deleting the Cyron Ransomware automatically without letting any encryption occur.

Ignorance of the law isn't just a problem for accidental law-breakers; it also can be an Achilles heel in law-abiding PC users who don't know that they haven't done anything wrong. Believing the wild and salacious claims of Trojans like the Cyron Ransomware is self-destructive to everything except the attacker's profits.