Flyper Ransomware

The Flyper Ransomware is a Trojan that encrypts your files and uses that attack to hold your information and media hostage until you pay a ransom. Victims can avail themselves of several replacement solutions that don't entail trusting a con artist with money in return for a decryptor they may not provide. For stopping the original installation or removing the Flyper Ransomware afterward, malware experts only can recommend using dedicated anti-malware products.

The Latest Threat Flipping Your Files for Money

The Flyper Ransomware is a Trojan that malware researchers rate as being a possible variant of the Hidden Tear project, a source of code responsible for a variety of file-encrypting threat campaigns inadvertently. Its attacks examples of the SOP of these types of campaigns, with little original about them technically. However, the Flyper Ransomware can cause potentially permanent damage to your files, making it impossible to restore them.

The Flyper Ransomware's payload includes:

• The Flyper Ransomware encrypts the data that Windows doesn't require for running, including text documents especially (such as TXT, DOCX or DOC), spreadsheets, and other formats of small sizes that may store valuable work records. The encoding process makes all of these files unusable without being decrypted.
• Although it's unrelated to the above function technically, the Flyper Ransomware also provides independent extensions for the data it attacks ('.the Flyper' at the end of each name). The rest of the original names, including the original extensions, aren't erased, allowing victims to track the damages.
• The Flyper Ransomware does create new files in the directories of encrypted content: text notes that provide a walkthrough on how to purchase Bitcoins and send them to the wallet address of the con artist administrating the Flyper Ransomware's campaign. They then supposedly will reciprocate, by providing you with a decryption service that undoes the Flyper Ransomware's encoding attack.
• To prevent you from searching for other solutions to its attacks, the Flyper Ransomware also implements a 'lock screen' style pop-up announcing the attack. The pop-up will cover the entire screen and prevent you from minimizing it or switching window focus away from it.

The result is a locked computer with inaccessible files, at least, until you pay a ransom that might provide no relief from the Flyper Ransomware's payload.

Flipping an Open Source Trojan the Bird

'Free' sources of threat code like Hidden Tear can generate many varieties of Trojans with nearly identical payloads in a surprisingly short amount of time. Although con artists like the Flyper Ransomware's authors make efficient use of such resources, this means of threat development also provides the PC security industry with a head start on creating decryption tools that give any victims options besides paying a ransom. Since Hidden Tear decryptors are widely available at no charge, malware researchers recommend using those before taking any desperate financial actions regarding the Flyper Ransomware's extortion scheme.

Most anti-malware solutions should be able to detect and delete the Flyper Ransomware, like similar variants of Hidden Tear, with high rates of success. In spite of that, malware experts have yet to analyze the Flyper Ransomware's infection vectors, which may use sufficiently recent exploits to be able to avoid detection until the Flyper Ransomware has encrypted some of your data. Many con artists prefer to distribute file encryption Trojans through forged e-mail messages, although attacks that aim at accounts with unreliable login security measures also are rising.

Doubtless, 'old' news like Hidden Tear remains relevant to the current day in threat news, with threat authors freely creating variants like the Flyper Ransomware while expending almost zero effort.