Home Malware Programs Ransomware ‘National Security Agency’ Ransomware

‘National Security Agency’ Ransomware

Posted: November 1, 2013

Threat Metric

Ranking: 2,995
Threat Level: 2/10
Infected PCs: 35,391
First Seen: November 1, 2013
Last Seen: October 16, 2023
OS(es) Affected: Windows

‘National Security Agency Ransomware Screenshot 1The 'National Security Agency' Ransomware displays fake warning messages that supposedly are authorized by the United States' NSA for blocking Windows and locking down your computer. As a PC threat that's similar to many variants of fake Police Trojans and fake FBI Trojans, the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware doesn't have any real government authority behind its attacks and may display its legal pop-up warnings even if your computer never has been used for any sort of criminal activity. The freeze the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware places on your PC is intended to bully you into paying a fake legal fine, but malware researchers recommend against giving in to this ransom demand and, instead, using good anti-malware tools and other strategies to remove the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware without any excessive charges.

When Your Personal Computer is a Matter of National Malware Attention

The 'National Security Agency' Ransomware isn't an actual program used by the NSA for penalizing cyber criminals, although its pop-up does its best to portray the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware as one. Rather, the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware is a Trojan that uses the common ploy of claiming that its victim has been involved in embarrassing crimes like viewing child pornography as an excuse to lock their computers and demand money in exchange for letting them have everything restored. Lending credence to the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware's hoax is its display of actual child pornography-related images combined with some stock legal text and basic information about your location (the latter of which is easily detectable by unsafe software that doesn't have access to any government databases).

Malware experts have seen similar tactics heavily involving the use of pornographic and corrupted
sites that redirect their traffic to the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware after surprising their victims with potentially illegal pornographic images. This provides the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware and similarly-themed PC threats with the perfect cover for their strategies, which can be launched automatically after a standard drive-by-download attack that installs the threat.

Of course, appropriate protections against these attacks are largely focused on your browser. Avoiding suspicious or outright threatening sites is one of the simplest defenses against a 'National Security Agency' Ransomware-installing exploit. Malware experts also warn that PCs with outdated software are significantly more vulnerable to drive-by-downloads, which often use out-of-date exploits that have been corrected by a variety of security patches. Last but not least, many anti-malware products are able to detect and block such attacks – either by the base website or by the exploits as their attacks are attempted.

Turning a Ransomware Trojan into Penniless Software

Even if you've made the right decision of avoiding paying the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware's ransom to remove its pop-up, the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware endangers your PC by preventing you from accessing other applications, including ones that are critical for your system security. Despite what the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware claims to be the best solution to its attack, malware researchers recommend an alternative way of removing the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware: disabling the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware by booting your PC through a peripheral device and then disinfecting your PC with whatever brand of anti-malware scanner you favor.

Since similar ransomware-based PC threats often include separate types of Trojans that assist them or have the ability to install new PC threats of different types, removing the 'National Security Agency' Ransomware is something that should be done at the first available point in time.

Technical Details

Additional Information

The following URL's were detected:
onemboaran.com
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