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Melme@india.com Ransomware

Posted: August 31, 2016

Threat Metric

Threat Level: 10/10
Infected PCs: 70
First Seen: August 31, 2016
OS(es) Affected: Windows


The 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware is a Trojan that encrypts your files to prevent you from using them until you pay its threat actors a ransom, such as one or more Bitcoins. In some cases, paying a ransom may provide a working decoder, but it also can result in nothing other than a loss of money or even irreversible damage to the data you try to decrypt. In the opinions of malware researchers, using anti-malware protection against the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware and additional data protection procedures, such as non-localized backups, are the superior recovery choices.

A Knock from Indian Encryption at Your PC's Door

With all the different versions of Trojans focusing on file encrypting attacks, informed PC owners have many examples of the differing levels of commitment that threat authors put into their campaigns. Some, such as the threat actors for the 'Masterlock@india.com' Ransomware, implement elaborate cons, while others, like the administrators of the the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware campaign, offer limited information to their victims. In either case, the infection can be a source of widespread file damage with no means of recovery.

Malware experts can trace evidence of the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware attacks back to mid-2016, with its infection vectors still unexplored. Some of the vulnerabilities con artists use for distributing Trojans like the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware include e-mail attachments disguising themselves as legitimate documents, brute forcing (or trial and error cracking) the passwords of a user account, and taking advantage of unsafe settings in remote desktop access.

Once it does get access to the system, the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware encrypts files without essential operating system dependencies, such as spreadsheets, documents or images. To allow for identification and ransom communications, it appends their names with the 'Melme@india.com' e-mail address and the 'xtbl' extension. Reports of some incidents note that the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware's payload does not generate any other files with additional information conventional to such attacks necessarily, such as decryption instructions. This omission leaves its victims in a situation of having to guess the threat actor's intentions (which most likely are expecting you to message the e-mail address in the encrypted data and pay for their decoding assistance).

Unveiling a Surefire Protection against a Mysterious Trojan's Campaign

The 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware seems to be low in distribution, with very limited sample sizes for analysis by the PC security sector. Since the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware's preferred extension type for encrypted content is a trait of more than one Trojan family, malware experts can't fully confirm all of this threat's capabilities or limitations. However, all threats of this type can be made more manageable by keeping backups elsewhere and using them to restore your files without requiring access to decryption help.

Protecting your PC from the infection vectors typical to this threat is just as important as protecting your data from suffering permanent damage. The 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware may conceal its installer in an attached e-mail document, be installed by con artists searching for accounts with weak passwords, or even bundle itself with separate programs, such as software cracks. Avoiding illicit downloads, strengthening your login security, and scanning content that may be illegitimate will cover all of these potential installation methods and remove the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware before it can create a hostage scenario with your files.

Threat authors almost always strive to keep their victims in ignorance, either by depriving them of information or by spreading misinformation. Informing yourself about threats like the 'Melme@india.com' Ransomware helps keep your person and your information safe.

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