‘helpmeonce@mail.ru’ Ransomware

Posted: February 28, 2017

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

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:	40

First Seen:	February 28, 2017
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware is a Trojan that can lock your files by encrypting them as a prelude to its ransoming demands, which sell its decryptor for a cryptocurrency transaction. While some extortionists do offer decrypting assistance at a high price, others have histories of accepting their money without giving anything back, and most victims should attempt other recovery techniques in preference over paying the ransom. Updated anti-malware protection also can help you delete the 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware either during the installation routine or after encoding your files.

Trojans to Help You out of Your Files and Cash

Different groups of threat actors are continuing to make good use out of the various free and rental-based bundles of source code that allow them to create new threats with almost no development time. The 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware is a recent byproduct of this environment whose ancestry malware analysts still are determining, although parts of its payload do resemble older Trojans like Troldesh, the Nemucod Ransomware or the Samas Ransomware. Its attacks extort money through the much-used strategy of locking any victims out of being able to open their files.

The 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware may enumerate both local hard drives and network shares for files to attack, which, ordinarily, include formats such as documents, pictures, spreadsheets and music. Malware analysts find different versions of the 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware using one of two extensions ('.cfk' or '.lfk') for flagging these files, which it encrypts and locks with an unidentified cipher.

The Trojan also generates a personal 'reference number' to distinguish the infection from other attacks. The 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware includes this number in one of two text messages that it generates automatically, exhorting the victims to pay a 1 Bitcoin fee for unlocking their files. At over a thousand dollars USD, this ransom is a likely byproduct of the 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware's campaign targeting business entities that are most able to afford such payments in exchange for restoring the potentially valuable contents of their servers.

Helping Those Who Help Themselves with Anti-Trojan Security

Until malware experts can find more in-depth samples of the 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware, they're unable to estimate the likelihood of its encryption algorithms being breakable. PC users with locked files and no other options should consider seeking assistance from cyber security researchers who already have experience with file-encrypting Trojans similar to this threat, and may be able to provide free decrypting help. However, no post-infection recovery option is more reliable than keeping backups of your data externally so that the 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware can't encode or delete them.

Con artists can gain access to business servers for ransoming them by compromising an administrator's e-mail account via disguised spam messages or brute force hacking the admin's login. Bare minimum security protocols like using appropriate, rotated passwords and analyzing downloads with anti-malware products can close the vulnerabilities most likely of being responsible for the 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware's installation. However, removing the 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware doesn't revert any already-occurred encryption, which is why malware analysts recommend a preventative defense so heavily.

The 'helpmeonce@mail.ru' Ransomware is only one of an increasingly burgeoning quantity of Trojans able to take your files and turn them against you until you pay a high price. As long as these attack methods and currencies like Bitcoin give con artists an easy computer hostage scenario, taking extra steps to save your media will be all but mandatory.

‘helpmeonce@mail.ru’ Ransomware

Threat Metric

Trojans to Help You out of Your Files and Cash

Helping Those Who Help Themselves with Anti-Trojan Security

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