help@badfail.info Ransomware

The help@badfail.info Ransomware is a file-locking Trojan that encrypts your media so that it will not open and creates messages demanding money for restoring them. Until malware experts can identify a possible decryption solution, any victims should restore from backups, if possible, instead of submitting to the extortion. Most anti-malware suites are removing the help@badfail.info Ransomware as a threat to your PC's files without any further issues.

Trojans Using Already-Taken Brand Names

Threat databases are catching new samples of a file-locker Trojan, which has no connections to open-source or RaaS projects, like Hidden Tear or the Globe Ransomware. This threat, which malware experts are dubbing as the help@badfail.info Ransomware, is using pop-ups that market the attack as being from the already-taken brand of there Paradise Ransomware, which is a separate Trojan from last year. Since the two Trojans use similar names but different symptoms and encryption techniques, any victim of the help@badfail.info Ransomware could make the understandable mistake of using an inappropriate decryptor and escalating the damage to their files.

The help@badfail.info Ransomware is a 32-bit Windows program whose earliest samples date back no further than May of 2018, using names such as 'badfail.exe' and 'paradise.exe.' At less than a megabyte in size, its executable can download and run nearly instantly, which loads a traditional encryption routine for locking files such as documents or pictures. It adds an extension to each blocked piece of media that displays the threat actor's e-mail address (for negotiating the ransom payments) and a 'paradise' string.

This file-locker Trojan also creates an HTA pop-up, although malware experts warn that this symptom is in evidence after the complete locking of all appropriate files. This window shows the victim's customized ID and key, along with instructions on paying a ransom for the decryption tool. As an apparent fail-safe, the help@badfail.info Ransomware also gives its victims secondary notes in a Notepad text format. Unlike the Paradise Ransomware, the help@badfail.info Ransomware doesn't take over the user's desktop wallpaper and lacks any connections to Ransomware-as-a-Service (or RaaS).

The Price of Failing to Help Your Files While You Can

For obvious reasons, the threat actors running file-locker Trojans' campaigns rarely accept any form of payment that doesn't prevent their victims from refunding at will. Victims that are considering paying for a decryptor should, first, contact appropriate PC security specialists for checking the help@badfail.info Ransomware's susceptibility to a free decryption solution. Some, but not all file-locker Trojans can have their media 'unlocked' readily.

Spam e-mails are an archetypal example of an infection vector for file-locking Trojans of all families, as well as independent ones like the help@badfail.info Ransomware. In these cases, a criminal can disguise the installation file as being an invoice, a delivery notice, an alert from hardware like a printer or fax machine or a news article. RDP and brute-force attacks also are typical in file-locking attempts against business entities. However, anti-malware technology can remove the help@badfail.info Ransomware before it has any chance of encrypting data or causing other damage to the PC, such as deleting the system restore points.

Traditional backups on non-vulnerable devices, such as USBs, offer any victim an easy way out of the help@badfail.info Ransomware's attacks. For those who value the data they save on their personal computers, personal security and happiness are at odds with the ransoming money from which a Trojan's author would build his own 'paradise.