May Ransomware

The May Ransomware is a Trojan that can lock your files and ask for Bitcoins in exchange for unlocking them with the threat actor's custom decryptor and key. Because these ransoming scenarios don't always give the intended results, you should protect any valuable files by backing them up to a location not subject to these attacks, such as a peripheral device. Various anti-malware programs also are detecting and deleting the May Ransomware automatically.

Modern Extortion with 'Try for Free' Tacked on the Side

May has been a period consistently high in file-encrypting attacks from various threat actors, including ones using both variants of old threats (like the now-infamous Crysis Ransomware), as well as brand-new ones. One of the latter, albeit primarily being identified as a possible variant of Hidden Tear, is the May Ransomware. Although its infection rate seems to be more limited than that of other Trojans, such as the XData Ransomware, it does include a secure encryption attack that may damage and block your files in perpetuity.

The May Ransomware encrypts content such as pictures and documents while adding a new extension onto their names. Depending on the version of the threat, the extension it uses can be either 'maysomware' or 'locked,' the latter of which is often borrowed for attacks by other, file-encrypting Trojans. The May Ransomware uses what malware analysts determine as being a variation of the AES and RSA encoding, which both makes the affected files illegible to any compatible programs and also decoding them difficult significantly.

The Trojan's authors are financing their attacks with the creation of HTML ransoming messages, including configurable values that could be implicative of RaaS origins. Currently, the May Ransomware is asking for 1.5 Bitcoins (over three thousand USD) to unlock the victim's files. To counterbalance the expense of the ransom, the May Ransomware's authors also offer limited, free decryption services to prove that they can provide the promised data restoration.

Stopping the May Ransomware from Being the Profitable Trojan of the Month

While many security solutions are identifying the May Ransomware as being a variation on the Hidden Tears family, malware analysts can't confirm any non-superficial ties between that pseudo-freeware Trojan and this threat's campaign. Although data on its infection strategies is in limited supply, the Trojan's threat actors are distributing it to the public actively, and its ransoming sums imply a campaign focusing on corporate entities. In these cases, brute-force attacks and e-mail spam attachments are traditional infection vectors.

The May Ransomware uploads its decryption key to the threat actor's remote server during the encryption routine, which can cause further issues for the recovery process. For most users, backing their files up to a peripheral or cloud-based device is both faster and more affordable than using any decryption options that either the security industry or con artists can provide. Paying any Bitcoin ransom always should be a final resort for equally valuable data, but even users without any file damage should remove the May Ransomware for the safety of their PCs.

Ransoming files isn't becoming any less profitable, despite the increasingly numerous emergence of competitors in this black market. Anyone not taking steps to protect their work or the computers that store it may, if unlucky, find themselves paying fees to Trojans like the May Ransomware.