KKK Ransomware
Posted: June 7, 2017
Threat Metric
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 |
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Infected PCs: | 21 |
First Seen: | June 7, 2017 |
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OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
The KKK Ransomware is a Trojan that demands Bitcoin ransoms after having blocked your files. While data recovery solutions do exist for threats of the KKK Ransomware's family, malware experts recommend blocking it with proper security protocols and protecting your media by backing it up. Anti-malware products with historical efficacy against Hidden Tear also should detect and delete the KKK Ransomware as being a threat to your PC.
Getting a Little Racism in Your Ransom
Since Hidden Tear is available to different threat actors throughout the world, with individual interests and motives, themes that various members of the Trojan family use can be quite diverse. Despite that, malware researchers don't often see ones as overtly toxic as the KKK Ransomware, which uses white nationalist imagery while showcasing its data-ransoming attacks. Like all working variants of HT, the KKK Ransomware also can lock the user out of opening different files in various folders.
The KKK Ransomware's payload is configured for a test environment and only scans the contents of a 'test' folder on the user's desktop (a behavior similar to the SuchSecurity Ransomware and the DolphinTear Ransomware) currently. Within the target directories, the KKK Ransomware encrypts files through an AES cipher, including pictures, documents and spreadsheets, for example. Program executables and Windows components are unaffected. For the media that does get blocked, their filenames acquire '.KKK' extensions appended to the old ones.
The more unusual part of the KKK Ransomware's payload is the HTML pop-up that the threat actor uses for ransom instructions. Besides some minor, interactive elements and demands for 0.05 Bitcoin, the Trojan also shows a background referencing the Ku Klux Klan organization. Fortunately, malware experts have not found any distribution methods involved in the KKK Ransomware's campaign that would imply the threat actors are targeting systems based on the ethnicity of their users.
Putting Racial Supremacy Wrong Doings Back in the Past
Although the KKK Ransomware may have an unfortunate crossover appeal to some threat actors, when bereft of its theme, the Trojan has few differences from other, edited builds of Hidden Tear. Victims have their choice of backups or free decryption programs for retrieving any files that the KKK Ransomware locks, without ransoms being necessary, in most scenarios. Paying the Bitcoin fee always has a high risk of the threat actor not reciprocating with the supposed decryption service, and malware experts recommend against it, as a rule.
File-encrypting threats tend to withhold their symptoms until after having caused damage to the files on your PC. When interacting with potentially unsafe Web content, including websites and e-mail attachments, consider the possibility of threat actors using it as an infection vector for the KKK Ransomware. Professional anti-malware products should delete the KKK Ransomware and related threats, regardless of any misleading names, icons, or extensions that form their disguises.
Some types of software, like some philosophies regarding genetics, belong in the past. Do your part to keep the KKK Ransomware from making new profits off old ideologies by making backups, updates, and anti-malware scans a part of your regular schedule.
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