Gyga Ransomware

The Gyga Ransomware is a file-locker Trojan or a threat that encrypts your media files so that they can't open. Its attacks include traditional notes asking for ransoms for the criminal's recovery aid and other supporting features like deleting backups. A non-locally-saved backup can provide a smooth recovery process, and most anti-malware products can remove the Gyga Ransomware, like other members of its family.

A Bot Aimed at Someone Else's Files for Commerce

The lines between threat categories sometimes blur, as in the case of the triple-threat EvilQuest Ransomware and similar Trojans that collect data while also attacking it with encryption. With the Gyga Ransomware, a newfound confirmed part of Dharma Ransomware's family, its payload isn't dissimilar from its ancestral equivalent hugely. A choice of e-mail addresses for its extortion may, nonetheless, cause some confusion.

The Gyga Ransomware has all of the standardized features of Dharma Ransomware's Ransomware-as-a-Service – a business that loans file-locking software capabilities to other threat actors. It runs a secure encryption routine for stopping the files on Windows users' systems, can create HTA or TXT ransom messages that sell its unlock and destroys backups. The Gyga Ransomware's chief update is to nothing more than its campaign name, as per the free e-mail address in its pop-up.

The Gyga Ransomware's e-mail, which also becomes part of the names of anything it locks, might be a source of confusion for less-informed victims. The 'gygabot' string suggests a reference to Trojan bots and botnets – recruited systems of infected devices that Trojans convert into networks for launching logistically-intensive attacks, such as DDoSes that crash Web servers. Although it's an incidental touch, it further impedes users from accurately surveying the scope of infections and isn't something that malware analysts commonly see in the Ransomware-as-a-Service sector.

Taking the Money Away from a Robotic Extortionist

Although the Gyga Ransomware isn't a botnet Trojan and has little in meaningful backdoor capabilities, it does provide issues for anyone without backups of their media. Documents, music, and even a server's databases are at risk of a permanent lockdown status from the Trojan's encryption. Although an old decryption utility for free is available, it doesn't accommodate the newer versions of the Dharma Ransomware, like the 'pain@onefinedstay.com' Ransomware, the Wiki Ransomware, the Xda Ransomware, the 1BTC Ransomware – or the Gyga Ransomware.

Backups are, as a result, a necessary tool for recovering without paying the ransom that the Gyga Ransomware demands. Even victims paying may not receive their due decryptor – and Bitcoin cryptocurrency lacks meaningful refunding protections.

As a rule, Windows users should act for securing their PCs from file-locking Trojans' attacks preemptively. Illicit downloads are a likely infection vector for the Gyga Ransomware, as are imitations of software updates on third-party websites and e-mail attachments like fake invoices. The active use of features like JavaScript, Java, Flash, or macros also can endanger users without any other protection.

With anti-malware products on-hand and up-to-date, most users should have little to fear from file-locking Trojans from the current Ransomware-as-a-Services. Standard threat-detection rulesets are sufficient for identifying the Gyga Ransomware from any Windows system.

With the Gyga Ransomware being not much more than one crashing wave in an ocean full of them, it's less of a meaningful threat, by itself, than it is a symptom of a business environment. Even criminals need money for living, but a wise PC user won't let that fee be a subtraction from their pockets.